A Week in Corsica

Finally, just over a month after we got back….  Talk about being a “lazy blogger”…

In my defence though,  life in general has been delayed by the summer holidays and at times shocking weather, a toddler who I am beginning to suspect was Godzilla in a former life, a visit from one of my oldest and craziest friends currently working in Borneo, a kidney infection that had me wondering whether I might be dying, and a very recent brilliant trip to Stockholm to visit friends (and to stuff our faces with seasonal crayfish)…    I have several Stockholm posts in the pipeline, hopefully they won’t take as long as this one has to post…

Corsica is somewhere we have always fancied visiting, and having had a bit of an Italy overdose (never a bad thing) whilst living in Bavaria, we opted for there over Sardinia and Sicily for our main 2017 summer holiday.   No lounging about for two weeks this time sadly, but a stay of seven days thanks to Mr R’s work commitments.  Had I booked any longer, I suspect he would have developed some kind of twitch…

Having left it until the last minute (also thanks to the job and a small matter of being permanently disorganised), we had little choice but to break up the journey, with a stop off for lunch in Cologne.    Thankfully this was relatively painless and gave us a chance to overdose on much missed buttered pretzels, the toddler to expend some energy in a soft play section before we got on another plane, and for the Small boy to have an enforced 3 hour German lesson as he gabbled away playing the PS2 with some newfound  native friends also awaiting connecting flights.

From Cologne we flew to Bastia, ignoring the fact that it was completely the opposite end of the island from our closest town of Porto Vecchio in the South…   This wasn’t actually too much of a problem (a word of warning, do make your offspring use the loo before the plane lands, or you will you be waiting for a good half an hour at the airport toilets – there are only four, and when several planes all land close together….) as there’s only one main coast road that leads down that way, so you can’t really get lost.   Although it took a couple of hours to get there, we were able to break up that leg with a trip to the supermarket for supplies, and a quick pizza stop on the way (the takeaway of choice it seems.  There are lots of roadside pizza vans dotted about the place, and most of them look good!)before arriving at our little Villa at Storia Di Blue a couple of hours later…

Storia Di Blue is a sweet little complex run by the rather fabulous Natalie.   Her English might not be perfect, but I am sure she can read minds as she pretty much included everything we needed to make our stay a pleasant one with the smallest member of our family – from a pushchair so we didn’t have to lug our own, right down to buckets and spades.  Natalie was also very helpful when I phoned in my best Franglais during our snorkelling mishap, and we were able to enjoy the rest of our afternoon on Rocappina safe in the knowledge that our equipment was still happily where it was where I had “left it”…

Our Villa was well stocked with everything I typically like to have on a self catering holiday (including a washing machine!), and was quiet and comfortable, and our older two adored it for the pool alone… As they are just about sensible enough to be able to use this on their own (when others were there obviously), this gave them a little bit of freedom and responsibility whilst the toddler was busy having a nap of an afternoon (and I actually managed to read a book in peace!).

There’s plenty on the doorstep in terms of all important supplies, with a small restaurant in walking distance, plus two small supermarkets to stock up in close by, and an all important decent bakery (the little local tarts you see everywhere might look like savoury quiches, but they are sweet and flavoured with orange, and they’re really good!).   There are also several little roadside restaurants a short drive away (if you get tired of regional food, Guest Burger is surprisingly good!)…

Storia di Blue served as a great base for exploring all the little nearby towns we wanted to see, including Bonifacio and its citadel, Porto Vecchio itself, the hillside town of Sartène, Lecci and Propriano, and of course the many fabulous beaches it boasts.

As Islands go, you can easily see a big chunk of Corsica in seven days if you have ants in your pants like us, and cannot sit still for longer than a day or so…  Next time, I would be tempted to return out of season to see “the real Corsica”,  July was just hotting up so I imagine that August could be hellishly busy when it comes to the roads, beaches, restaurants and the like…   I have it on good authority that it’s gorgeous in the Autumn, and some of the natives in the supermarkets etc. might seem a little less frazzled.

Talking of supermarkets, go during the morning before people are setting out for the day, or make the massive mistake of going as people are coming back from the beach of an evening, and be prepared for aisles not dissimilar to Tokyo Subway trains at rush hour.   This does not make for a pleasant shopping experience, especially when shopping in foreign supermarkets happens to be one of your hobbies and you need to concentrate…    I recommend you go shortly after lunch instead to stock up, where you can peruse at leisure, and partake in all manner of samples (beware the raw samples of Figatelli, Corsica’s most famous sausage – it’s much better fried like black pudding for many reasons believe me!), and stock up on much more reasonably priced Petit Bateau all in ones for the toddler…    Do make sure to add some citronella to your basket as well, you can almost hear the mosquitos flapping their way towards you as soon as the sun starts to go down.  Once slathered in repellent, we didn’t suffer thankfully…

As you might imagine for somewhere predominately French speaking, you can find some incredible food, from the regional charcuterie, plenty of hard mountain cheeses, lots of hazelnut delicacies and local honey, good local wines, and excellent fruit and veg.   The coffee is good, but can be quite a rarity in that they don’t have millions of little cafes like we do.   If you are lucky, the local baker will have a decent machine, but don’t expect any lattes or the like – the speciality here is a tiny “noisette” – a hardcore espresso with a splash of milk.   If you stand out as a foreigner, you will probably pay through the nose for it too, but if you are addicted and all that…

Corsica is great for sunshine as you might imagine, and many people head here for the beaches alone, but there’s just so much more to see, with its rich tapestry of history handed down by its many caretakers over the years.    Given that you can see Sardinia from the beach on a clear day, it’s not hard to feel like you are in Italy one second, only to have to switch to terrible school standard French when you realise that you aren’t the next, it really is unique in so many ways…

We will be back, to explore the North part of the island (in the Autumn!) one day…   But until then, Merci Corsica, you were a wonderful place to explore and unwind for a few days…