Charming hillside town Corbara - my temporary home

I would have loved to spend the 4 weeks on my own in Scotland, even accepting the cold weather. But, as I have never driven on the left side of the road, it was not something I wanted to risk to start without someone watching out for right turns and wrong lanes. Now, I have definitely put driving on the other side on my list of future projects.

Where else would I find something similarly remote? Corsica!

What a beautiful place! It was a perfect fit for me. I loved the idea immediately, as this French island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, south of the coast of France and north of Sardinia and Sicily, is somewhat off the beaten path, and, to my knowledge, not as much visited as other, Italian, Greek, and Spanish islands. Spring weather would be an added bonus: no need to buy extra clothing.

First, I explored the southern tip of the island, a somewhat busy place, as it is the port town for the 2‑hour ferry to the northern coast of Sardinia.

Bonifacio, the breathtaking town in the south, encompasses everything that Corsica stands for: cliffs of rough rock formations between sandy beaches along the coast as well as all over the island, a citadel from medieval times, and a newer part of the city with a big marina. The highest peaks of the island still had plenty of snow on them when I arrived at the beginning of May.

With a rental car I took the scenic rural roads along the coastline to Ajaccio on the south-western coast and with so many curves, what should have taken me 2.5 hours turned into nearly four, as I needed to stop often to admire the scenery around the next bend, and the next after that.

Beautiful rugged Corsica!
Historically, *Corsica* was habituated by the Greek, the Romans and in 1500s by the Italian Genoese, who left their footprint in many of the historical fortifications on the islands. Since 1796, Corsica has belonged to France, although the locals, besides French, also speak *Corsican*, which looks a lot like a variation of Italian, but sounds different.

I didn’t linger in Ajaccio and continued to my destination farther north, into the Balagne region. This area has a very comfortable, natural feel to it. Time is slower here. It is nestled between the green, rather steep hills with its many hillside villages and the plenty beaches and little coastal cities.

I stayed in Corbara, in one place for nearly three weeks, thinking that I have done plenty of exploration in the last two years and it would be nice to stay put in one spot for a longer period.

I chose a comfortable place with lots of character, not big, but with several outdoor spaces for sitting. I’m not sure I was completely aware when I booked it that my little village was one of those picturesque places clinging to the hillside after many narrow hairpin curves (up and down), with only one lane for both directions through most of the village. It worked out, as I took walks and not many drives during that time.

I painted a bit so as not to get too rusty, just for my own fun. It was quite enjoyable.

I had time to read the two books that I had been carrying with me for months, improve my French with Duolingo, and finally eat salads with the ingredients I like.

I streamed TV or news whenever I wanted, and I got really bored by the end of the second week. My solution : plan out what I wanted to do when we finally settle down again.

Another trip took me to the fortress villages within a 10‑minute drive: Sant’Antonino and Pigna, high above the ocean and full of narrow cobbled streets winding around pretty white churches, with dramatic mountain landscapes in the background toward the island’s interior with lots of evergreen shrubland up these mountains. Olive trees were in bloom, fig trees were starting to produce small fruits, and poppies and other wildflowers were blossoming as well.

Sant'Antonino, the oldest inhabited village in Corsica and labelled as one of the most beautiful villages in France, is perched on a hilltop and only accessible by climbing up the very irregular cobbled walkways and through vaulted archways. At the top, there is a view all around the surrounding countryside and toward the very blue Mediterranean Sea. Fortunately, one of the few cafés was already open, so I could enjoy a nice café au lait. This village is probably very crowded in the summer, with lots of visitors.

Pigna is in a way very similar: no place for cars and old, but typical, stone buildings with blue doors and shutters, very characteristic of the traditional culture of Corsica.

Luckily for me, it had an excellent restaurant at the bottom of the hilly village, so I fortified myself before climbing up. It supposedly has many artisan shops, but none were open yet, as it was still too early in the year and the season hadn’t started.

It was nice to recognize that I could understand and speak the language and my five years of learning French in school was coming back beautifully. I love that the Corsicans that I talked to pleasantly smiled when I spoke. They waited it out, understood also my English words threaded in the conversation, and then answered back in French. Fantastic! Everywhere else, people respond in English, as it is faster, but not here. Really loved that!

After a long two and a half weeks, I opted to take the train to my next destination, Bastia, in the Northern part of Corsica.

What a train! It’s the shortest I have ever seen, and made me nervous if there would be enough space. But I was told not to worry.

The train took me along the western coast into the heart of the island. Barely inhabited with hard to reach little hillside villages and lots and lots of greenery.

The train runs twice daily, 7:30am and 4:15pm. I’m not an early riser, so after checking out I had to idle at the train station in Calvi for hours. The miniature train arrived - no problem. Until I had to switch trains in the center of the island to one that came from Bonifacio in the south, and I was very lucky to get the last remaining seat. And the closer we neared to Bastia, the more packed it became!

People were standing totally tight in the walkways, and I saw the reason: most of them wore jerseys or scarves with the blue and white logo of Sporting Club de Bastia. A critical soccer match between Corsica and a French mainland team would decide if they were relegated to the second league or remain in league one. One stop prior to the terminal station in Bastia, everyone departed the train with only a few stragglers like myself remaining (they lost).

*Cap Corse* is a peninsula in the North of Corsica, like an upright finger pointing to France.

Only since the 19th Century exists a cliff-hugging road, a corniche, all around the coast, often high up, with endless curves, connecting the secluded rocky inlets with tiny fishing ports. To circumnavigate Cap Corse with this narrow road would take four hours by car, but I decided to cut it in half and stay for a few days at the northern most point, in Centuri Port.

This winding road, high above the serrated coastline, takes all the concentration you have to stay in your own lane, hoping that a car coming from the other side is not tearing down the middle of one of those many invisible 90 degree hairpin curves. I loved the challenge, but I was also happy that I had chosen to drive my little car clockwise around the peninsula, myself hugging the woods and maquis bushes and away from the often steep and unsecured drop offs on the cliff side of this narrow road.

The old fishing town, Centuri Port, offered several restaurants, and of course their specialty is the catch of the day and local lobster.

Acceptable warm weather, but the whole time I stayed on Corsica it was windy, sometimes very, very windy, which I actually really like.

The very few villages in this rugged region were in earlier years only accessible from the ocean (and inland possibly by donkey); they were also easily attacked by pirates, which resulted in 30 strong medieval looking towers dotting the coastline where the common folks found refuge during the attacks.

Many Capicursini (the native inhabitants and residents of Cap Corse) emigrated to the Americas, especially to Puerto Rico, made their money there and came back to build nice villas and castle-like appearing structures high on the hills - really surprising when you pass one by car; although most are now abandoned.

Bastia, a busy town with a population of 50,000, is the center of all ferries to France and Italy. The ferries are enormous in size, nearly as huge as big cruise ships.

View from - *you guessed it!* - a citadel, to the lower marina of Bastia

View of old Bastia from the marina harbor light house

The ferry port is a few kilometers north of the city, so the city itself is rather pretty, with another honey-colored citadel high up on a cliff and a picturesque marina. It has that great Mediterranean atmosphere with its shady trees and cafés. There are lots of vineyards all over the island, but I was never impressed with the Corsican wine.

On my last day on the island, the clouds looked really weird. A sign? And if so, which one?

I really enjoyed my time in Corsica, as it was exactly what I had hoped for: an abundance of rugged beauty, with cliffs, green-covered hills and mountains, strong winds, and rough seas crashing against cliff rocks. There are not many major tourist highlights to draw large crowds, even during the peak season, and the beautiful hilltop citadel villages are so plentiful that visitors end up spread across the entire island anyway. Once you have seen one or two of these old cobblestone communities, they can start to feel repetitive. There are also sandy beaches, mainly in the south, but they were not my focus. In May, the Mediterranean water is still too cold for my taste, although many French travelers were already spending time sunning themselves by the shore.

Corsica was the right place for me to relax, watch birds soaring high in the sky but at my eye-level from high on the slopes and villages, and looking out onto the pristine ultramarine ocean feeling a soft breeze or strong wind blowing on my face.

As Randy and I had not seen each other for a month, we both really looked forward to our travel day when we both landed in Switzerland and were together again.

Picturesque Corsica

Pacific Peregrination

Picturesque Corsica

The Sicilian Sabbatical

Pacific Peregrination