After yesterday's big drive round the Cape, we're on a much shorter excursion today to the coastal town of Calvi about an hour and a half drive to the South West. The first part of the journey is once again over the delightful Col de Lavezzo, with it's lovely winding road. Apart from a few very small towns, the only town of note on the journey was Ile Rousse, which isn't actually an island but more just a traffic jam. True to their “in a hurry” nature, we did observe several of the locals ducking in and out of service stations to move themselves 3 cars ahead in the traffic. It was nice starting the day with the roof down, but as we got caught in the traffic jam in Ile Rousse, the temperature was hitting 37 degrees, so it was time to put the roof up for the day.
Part of the reason that this part of Corsica is so busy in summer is that there are ferries to both Ile Rousse and Calvi from France and they are all big boats. In fact for such a small island, Corsica has a remarkable 7 ferry ports. This explains why the population of Corsica goes up 6 times over the summer months and true locals are very hard to find.
Arriving in Calvi in the late morning, we went for a walk around the town and up to the castle on the hill overlooking the city. It is a beautiful setting overlooking the harbour, with restaurants dotted all around the port.
One facit we have noticed of the sea faring set is their love of white attire. Just about every clothes shop we've seen on the West Coast of Corsica has been almost exclusively full of white cloting. I guess it puts them a cut-above because white would be totally impractical for camping or even staying in hotels because almost anywhere you go on land you get dusty.
We had lunch in a beautiful harbourside restaurant and then retired to a small bar to watch an hour of the Tour De France. This had the added bonus of allowing the queues of cars from the recently arrived ferry to disperse, so we could make our return home. Passing through Ile Rousse, we were pleased to be only minorly delayed and then had an awesome uninterrupted 25k run over the Col De Lavezzo. It really is an awesome road, and would be great on a motorbike. Because there was no other traffic, it was a great opportunity to push the car along abit, but not too much mind, because unlike James Bond's Martini, Anne prefers to be stirred (by the beauty of the scenery) and not shaken (by the rapidity of the driving).
Swim in the evening, followed by dinner by the tent of Prosciutto, cheese, bread and a bottle of rose, then a pizza at the campground restaurant and an icecream. When we arrived at the Restaurant, the waiter said something to us in French, which we didn't understand, but everybody else was laughing. Then he explained that he'd said “I take it you are here for the Tennis”, which was directly taking the piss out of our best attempts at French. Anne has been doing very well with her French, but a lot of it is contextual, so when you're in a restaurant, they're obviously going to ask you if you want a table and then what you would like to eat. When some wag says “I take it you're hear for the tennis”, we're totally lost. I got him back later when he came to collect our plates at the end of the evening, by telling him the meal wasn't up to scratch with a very straight face. It was lame, but it was the best I could do with my almost non-existent French. The waiter and the other staff did atleast appreciate my efforts to get back at him.
All most as non-existent as my french is my knowledge of the stars, but Anne has just advised that she's seen the Southern Cross, so I'd better check it out. I'm doubtful we can see it this far North, but stranger things have happened. OK, I've had two glasses of very cheap wine tonight, but there is no way that the Southern Cross is up there. I'm quite good at looking out the bedroom window in Wellington in the middle of the night and spotting it in the Southern sky and there's no way it's come up here on holiday with us.
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