Corsica

Top to bottom: Calvi airport, south of Calvi; Piana from our hotel; Piana's church at night.








We just got back from Corsica yesterday. We flew there Saturday the 31st of May and came back Wednesday June 4. While Munich is still my favorite city so far, Corsica is now my favorite holiday destination. It is even better than Las Vegas (well, except for the lack of gambling).

A little background for those of you who may not know anything about Corsica. It is an island in the Mediterranean, right above Sardinia. Find Genoa, Italy on the map and go straight down. The Greeks, Romans, Vandals, Moors, Genoese, French, English, French, Germans/Italians, and French again, have all controlled it for a time, but have never controlled the people. They would just move up into the mountains and take potshots at them.

We flew into Calvi, which is on the northwest, and drove to stay in Piana, which is on the western side of the island, between Porto and Cargese. It is only 30+ kilometers to Piana from the airport, but it took 2 hours to get there (just about 15 minutes south of the airport, you pass this fenced area that has all these wild pig skins mounted on the fence, like something out of the Hills Have Eyes; this will be important later). There was no traffic, but you don't want to drive fast on those roads (unless you are Corsican). Two-lanes, on the sides of mountains with a long way to the bottom. You do have to watch for tourists who pull over (cannot really call it pulling over, when there is no where to pull over) and get out and take pictures.

As far as the countryside, it reminded us a lot of the Bay Area hills. From what we saw, it would be like you cut off California until the Pacific was right at the base of the Sierra, shrink the plains to half a mile, then have the Rockies, shrink the Mid-Atlantic Conference to a half mile, then have more mountains, and the Atlantic (the island is only 85 kilometers wide, or about 44 miles). Makes for very dramatic landscape.







Hiking towards the Tour de Turghiu












Uh, up there?









Almost there












Finally














The view that launched a sea kayak





On Sunday, we hiked out to this old Genoese tower on Capu Rossu, about 3 hours roundtrip (at the beginning of the hike, when we were starting, this guy, with a 30-06 slung on his shoulder was finishing; I told Kari not to worry about it, unless he pointed it at us; this will become pertinent in a bit). When the Genoese controlled Corsica (1400's or so), they put about 60 watch towers around the coast of the island. This one, the Tour de Turghiu, has some amazing views. It should because it is a tough hike. The guidebooks did not mention the difficulty, only that there was no shade (there is a nice snack shack at the parking lot that sells cold beer, god bless 'em, because it got pretty warm that day). You do NOT want to attempt this hike unless you are in pretty decent shape; the difficulty surprised a lot of people we spoke to. The hike out to the base of the rock is not a stroll, and the route up the rock is steep and you are walking through a creek/waterfall for 2/3 of the climb.

But when you get up there, there is some view. The beaches below provided inspiration for the events that transpired on Monday.





Kari luxuriating at Plage d'Arone



After the hike, we went down to Plage d'Arone, about 10 minutes by car. The water was cold, but because it was so warm out and we were hot from the hiking, it was very refreshing. I did a bit of snorkeling and we laid about for a while.

Speaking about snorkeling, I don't know how many other people who have seen Jaws have this problem, but I do not like swimming in open bodies of water. I think of two things: 1) humans are not supposed to inhale when under water; and 2) Dum Dum, Dum Dum, Dum Dum Dum Dum...



Marina of Porto


Monday we went down to Porto (NOTE: NO public toilets in Porto. If you have to go, you will have to have a drink at one of the cafes) to rent a sea kayak. The hike the day before had inspired us (okay, inspired me) to go out to the beach we saw below the tower. Since neither of us had ever been sea kayaking before, we figured this would be a piece of cake, no problem.

Well, you know what happens when you assume. Besides lack of experience, when you put two strong-willed, hard-headed land lubbers in a little boat on a pretty big body of water, you tend to have problems. In hindsight, we should have rented a little Zodiac because Kari has driven boats before. Anyway, we paddled for about a half-hour and decided that the waves looked a lot smaller from the tower (that is, they were bigger than the waves in a pool).



What else are you going to do on your 40th? Cool bridge!


We went back to Plage d'Arone. The day was a lot cooler, which made the water seem a lot colder, but I went snorkeling anyways. Then I built a sandcastle, with a lovely little bridge.

On Tuesday we went on another hike. We drove to this little town (well, there was an abandoned church with 4 homes in various states of occupation/abandonment), Revinda and took a trail that led to this other town, Marignana. The round trip is 6.5 hours, so we planned on going about 2 hours then turning around.

Now, in Corsica, they have wild pigs (remember Old Yeller?). From the hides that were staked out around Jason's land they do not seem to be that big (at least no where near the size of that monster that kid brought down last year with a .50 cal revolver. Anyways, this is probably why the fella the other day had that rifle. But we saw nothing in the literature about wild pigs, so no worries.

Anyways, the hike was nice. Not as difficult as the other day, but a lot of it was probably what Merry and Pippin went through when they ran off into Fangorn Forest. We got about 1.5 hours in, and we are going up this slightly rising right hand turn, Kari is about 15 feet behind me. I hear this weird guttural growl; figuring that it is Kari, I turn and look at her. Since her eyes were about 4X the size of normal, I realize it was not her. As I am turning to take her hand, we hear it again. "Well, that was a nice hike, time to turn around and walk nice and easy back the way we came".

Although we didn't actually see anything, I am pretty sure it was an Alaskan grizzly bear, or maybe a polar bear. Pretty sure.


Uh, what was that?


After that adrenaline pumping hike back to the car, we went to a nearby beach, Plage d'Chiuni, which was basically on the other side of the highway from our hike. There is a Club Med there. We looked for seashells, I did some snorkeling (cold water), and laid about for a bit. We saw these two hikers heading up into the hills, with an encased rifle. Going to have to look into that for our next trip.



An inspiring vista.


Tuesday evening we went back to Capu Rossu and brought a picnic and watched the sun set. This provided me with inspiration for our next trip to Corsica. Oh yes, there will be another before we leave Europe.

We had a couple of nice meals at the restaurants in Piana, both of which were reasonably priced. If you go, try something with sanglier (wild boar) or one of the many fish dishes. We thought the Corscian wines were also nice, and the beers, Colomba (a sort of wheat beer), Pietra (an ale flavoured with chestnuts), and Serena (eh, tastes like Bud, for the refined gentlemen in my family). We also had some nice goat sausage/salami and several nice cheeses.

All in all, we both really liked Corsica and we are going back. The next time, we will be heavily armed when we go hiking. Got to watch out for them grizzly bears. Or polar bears. Might have been Le Bigfoot.