Corsica is a small mountainous island and most of the roads are narrow and windy – an average of 50kph is not to bad in these parts. Why is it then that the locals seem in such a hurry. In an hour a half of driving this afternoon, I twice had to pull off the road to get out of the way of drivers coming at me on the wrong side of the road. When I can see round corners ahead of me, I am always on the lookout for cars coming into a corner two a breast. When I can't see round corners, I creep into the corners at the slowest speed possible just on the off chance that some clown is passing on a blind corner. This place turns defensive driving into Drive to Survive.
Today's excursion is to drive to Corte, a small town set high in the mountains of central Corsica. The road to Corte start off beautifully winding up through the moutains to Col de Lavezzo at 421m, which looks out over the hilly and barren Desert Des Agriates. Looking back as we leave Saint Florent, we got beautiful views back over the town and the port. We had headed for the hills to try and escape the heat wave, but were out of luck as the temperature soured into the mid 30's by midday. We passed a number of cyclists on the climb and I was quite envious as it would be a beautiful ride as it's a nice and gradual incline and would be a fantastic ride back to Saint-Florent.
After descending from the Col de Lavezzo, the road widened and straitened and the trip to Corte was very straight forward and my faith in Corsican drivers was largely restored. In truth, over a number of driving days, all the problems occur around Bastia, so there must be some serious vendettas playing out in that small city – they probably take a dislike to our car with our French number plates.
Corte was a beautiful little town, set high in the moutains. Despite the heat, there are mountains that tower over Corte that still have patches of snow on their peaks. Being in the mountains site-seeing in a town means you're walking up and down lots of steep hills, so by the time we got to lunch, we were both saturated in sweat and taking a real beating from the sun.
One of the most notable things in Corte was that all the road signs are in both French and Corsican – well they were in both French and Corsican, until a local dissident came along and blacked out all the French words. You can see it on the photos, but now that we've picked up on it, it occurs all over the top part of the island that we've visited so far.
We made a bit of a mistake at lunch by ordering the “suggestion of the day”. The chef must be a real wag, because his suggestion was spaghetti and beef casserole – why have something light on a day when the mercury is well into the 30s.
The return trip was uneventful, apart from one view point we stopped at. A couple went past on a motorbike and the woman on the back wearing hipsters and a tight fitting top, which had ridden up, had a very red sunburnt bum. I laughed out loud when I saw it, because it was so red. No doubt she'll cotton onto it tonight, when she has a rather uncomfortable night's sleep.
Our routine at the end of each day is to head to the campground swimming pool, which is a wonderfully relaxing way to end a busy day's site-seeing. It cools you right down, soothes your aching feet, relaxes all the muscles in your body and the shower that precedes it washes a days sweat and grime off.
Today's excursion is to drive to Corte, a small town set high in the mountains of central Corsica. The road to Corte start off beautifully winding up through the moutains to Col de Lavezzo at 421m, which looks out over the hilly and barren Desert Des Agriates. Looking back as we leave Saint Florent, we got beautiful views back over the town and the port. We had headed for the hills to try and escape the heat wave, but were out of luck as the temperature soured into the mid 30's by midday. We passed a number of cyclists on the climb and I was quite envious as it would be a beautiful ride as it's a nice and gradual incline and would be a fantastic ride back to Saint-Florent.
After descending from the Col de Lavezzo, the road widened and straitened and the trip to Corte was very straight forward and my faith in Corsican drivers was largely restored. In truth, over a number of driving days, all the problems occur around Bastia, so there must be some serious vendettas playing out in that small city – they probably take a dislike to our car with our French number plates.
Corte was a beautiful little town, set high in the moutains. Despite the heat, there are mountains that tower over Corte that still have patches of snow on their peaks. Being in the mountains site-seeing in a town means you're walking up and down lots of steep hills, so by the time we got to lunch, we were both saturated in sweat and taking a real beating from the sun.
One of the most notable things in Corte was that all the road signs are in both French and Corsican – well they were in both French and Corsican, until a local dissident came along and blacked out all the French words. You can see it on the photos, but now that we've picked up on it, it occurs all over the top part of the island that we've visited so far.
We made a bit of a mistake at lunch by ordering the “suggestion of the day”. The chef must be a real wag, because his suggestion was spaghetti and beef casserole – why have something light on a day when the mercury is well into the 30s.
The return trip was uneventful, apart from one view point we stopped at. A couple went past on a motorbike and the woman on the back wearing hipsters and a tight fitting top, which had ridden up, had a very red sunburnt bum. I laughed out loud when I saw it, because it was so red. No doubt she'll cotton onto it tonight, when she has a rather uncomfortable night's sleep.
Our routine at the end of each day is to head to the campground swimming pool, which is a wonderfully relaxing way to end a busy day's site-seeing. It cools you right down, soothes your aching feet, relaxes all the muscles in your body and the shower that precedes it washes a days sweat and grime off.
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