What a place! The mountains are absolutely beautiful. Almost
enough to bring tears to my eyes as we rode about 80 km for 3 hours in 1st, 2nd and 3rd
gears only past cascading rivers, snow capped peaks, wild flowers everywhere and cattle and pigs
wandering on to the road. Lots of bikers coming the other way. All tourers, no
sports bikes. Eventually emerged on the
west side of the island and then rode south along a beautiful coastline with
lovely villages and beaches and mountains inland of us. I have to admit it made
the Great Ocean Road in Victoria seem a very poor cousin. To top it all, blue
skies and 26 degrees, though an afternoon thunderstorm hit the mountains well after
we had passed through making them even more dramatic.
The Corsican people are equally marvellous. We stopped for
morning coffee at Corte where we had coffee and the local Corse gateau, a leaf
shaped cake with chopped fig and a leaf actually cooked into it. Very nice but
we ditched the leaves. Corsicans, unlike the mainland French are super friendly
and seem to have no trouble understanding my crap French, unlike their mainland
cousins, some of whom look blankly if I mispronounce a word or use the wrong
tense. Lunch at a harbour-side restaurant at Sagone. Salad for Gail and mussels
and home-made chips for me. Again great
staff at this informal timber cabin eatery. Not cheap though.
Found a marvellous little hotel in the narrow main street of
Propriano. Again over a bar, with a view of a bay of the Med which is just 50 metres away. Had a shower, went for a
walk, had a beer at an outside bar near the water just outside our hotel, where
I am writing this. Of the 70+ countries I have visited, Corsica has to be the
best, and it isn’t just the beer speaking. BUT, like Tasmania it is a small
island, about 200km by 80km so it wouldn’t take long to do everything there is
to do if you lived here. Having said that, we’re not sure we would ever get
tired of a place like this.
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