Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Wednesday 30 April, 2014
Corsica Part 2 has been a welcome change of pace as we have slowed down to that of a beach side vacation. We managed to catch up on the washing and did some shopping as we will be catering for ourselves in the beach shack. Then after an afternoon siesta we took a walk along the beach – only accessible by foot and quite remote and protected now by undergrowth but it was once the site of many free campsites among the trees. In fact it is a series of little coves & beaches among the rocks – very picturesque & invitingly blue. We would love to swim but the wind is quite cold and very strong. In some places, the rocks are carved in weird and wonderful shapes by the wind and the trees grow low and flat.
Our second day featured a car trip north via Sartene, an austerely granite mountain town which, until the recent elections, boasted the only Communist mayor in Corsica. He was fiercely against too much development so things may be about to change dramatically. Certainly, Brigitte notices a great deal of commercial development everywhere compared to when she began coming here more than 30 years ago. To us, there still seems a great deal that is wild and unspoilt which hopefully will stay that way. In the church in Sartene, which is a pilgrimage centre, we saw the 34kg cross and the 15kg chain that are carried/dragged by the “penitent” on Good Friday. This has been the practice for centuries and there are enough people lining up to do it until 2070! Takes all sorts....
North of Sartene we visited the archeological site of Filitosa where artefacts dating back 8000 years have been unearthed, ranging from small arrow heads to large menhirs and dolmen. These latter are less old – only 1300 BC but most impressive, placed as they are en masse on a prominent hill. While they are not as large as the ones at Stonehenge, the site is very interesting and informative. It is fascinating to speculate on how they were carved and transported and their significance to the people of the time.
Since coming down here and with some encouragement from Brigitte, I have been doing a little of the driving – luckily the roads are a bit less winding and precipitous! That doesn’t stop people overtaking at any opportunity and it is not unusual to be suddenly face on to a car or bike on your side of the road. We go to the boulangerie every day for fresh bread and sometimes croissants, sometimes the delicious pastries called “brocciu” – a bit like lemon cheesecake and made with fresh cheese of the same name – also delicious in the middle of doughnuts! Ray is complaining that there is something wrong with the water here as it is shrinking our clothes....Hmmm.
The weather has continued to be fine though sometimes overcast, which means the Mediterranean is not quite as blue as Brigitte would like for our benefit. It is nevertheless impressively blue and never more so than the day we went to Bonifaccio – Brigitte’s favourite place in Corsica. No wonder why – it is spectacular and vaguely familiar as I am sure it features in every travel ad for Corsica. The Citadelle is perched high above the protected little port, facing into the fierce winds, while far below on the other side, the sea lashes the chalky cliffs. One rock formation is said to be the “gouvernail” of Corsica i.e. the ship’s wheel. Brigitte treated us to a special Corsican lunch in a restaurant/antique shop in one of the little streets of the old city. Afterwards we tested our seagoing ability with a boat trip out around the cliffs – unfortunately too rough to actually go into the grottos underneath the cliffs (!) but not so rough to cause sea sickness. Altogether a very satisfactory day!
Thursday, May 1, was our last day to sight see and we headed this time back into the mountains to the Col de Bavelle, a range of needle like mountain peaks at almost 2000m. Enroute, we treated Brigitte and ourselves to lunch at Zonza as a celebration of our 42 wedding anniversary. The others had a full menu of charcuterie, steak/sanglier stew, cheese, dessert but I chose a vegetarian pizza as I am a bit over the preponderance of saucisson, pancetta, figatelli (blood sausage) that is favoured on the menus here. The mountains unfortunately were shrouded in cloud and we were unable to enjoy the views of the ocean on both sides. Many people were walking/rock-climbing and we too enjoyed a walk, gathering wild flowers (tiny cyclamon, lily of the valley, muguet) among the giant bonsai fir trees, truncated by storms and twisted into weird and wonderful shapes by the wind.
Many shops were closed as it was a Labor Day and a public holiday here – except the flower stalls & shops which were doing a roaring trade in muguet (may flowers?). Evidently they even fly them in at great expense to faraway French places like Reunion. May Day is certainly celebrated with more zeal than in Qld! Someone should speak to Cando about this – or maybe we should resort to the Corsican remedies for any serious disagreement i.e. the gun or the bomb. We have seen several shops, houses and a car which have been give the “plastique” treatment (bomb) and at least one man has been shot since we arrived. The head of police in Bastia was assassinated a few years ago and it took years to find the culprit hiding out in a little bergery in the mountains. Definitely a different standard of law and order exists on the island.
Now it is May 2 and we are aboard the ferry back to the mainland. Tomorrow we take the plane to Ireland.
- comments