KYQ4: Corsican Days

Cascade on Costa Verde

It was my fourth visit to Corsica, a wild yet beautiful island that gave France Napoleon and that still harbours a lingering desire for independence. The first two visits were during family holidays, but they allowed me to climb Monte Cinto, Monte Renosa, and the Bavella peaks. My next trip was shortly after retirement to fulfil a long-held ambition to walk the GR20, one of Europe's best long-distance hikes. On this occasion, following Aileen's funeral, I was invited to stay with my long-time friend, Ian, and his wife, Beatrix, in their house on Corsica. Beatrix, who in recent years had become a close friend of Aileen, was a francophile, and Beatrix had sent her a daily postcard depicting French life to raise Aileen's spirits during her last couple of months as life ebbed away.

As the date approached, I had anxieties about travelling abroad without Aileen. She spoke excellent French and provided reassurance that we would be able to cope with all eventualities. Other questions arose. Was I healthy and fit enough? Why was travel insurance so high post-Brexit? I would also have to travel to London and then get to Gatwick Airport by 5:00 a.m. for an early flight. The heatwave in the previous few weeks in Scotland had prompted a bout of hay fever for the first time in years and left me with a barking cough that required a regular intake of cough lozenges to minimise the disruption to fellow travellers.

It all went surprisingly well apart from the cough. The flight from Gatwick took off an hour late owing to insufficient take-off slots, but that is par for Gatwick. Bastia airport was an example of what airports should be: impeccably clean, a good food outlet serving local products at local prices and a good bus service into Bastia. I had booked a hotel for the first night in Bastia. It was a couple of kilometres out of town and up a steep hill, but it had a sparkling view of the sea through the pines and platoons of oleanders in full flower. After a friendly chat with the receptionist, I was upgraded to a balcony room and within the hour, I had managed a swim and settled down for a siesta. A fine meal at the nearby pizza restaurant with a carafe of Corsican rosé set me up for a good sleep. I was collected by Ian and Beatrix first thing the next morning when they arrived on the overnight ferry from Toulon, close to where they lived.

The heavy morning traffic through Bastia was indicative of a rapidly growing region. It took 45 minutes to reach Petinella restaurant and stop for a perfect French breakfast, although I resisted the lavish selection of cakes and pastries. Twenty minutes along the road, we called at a roadside fruit and vegetable market and loaded up with local produce that sent the taste buds into overdrive. It was another half hour to the mountainside village where my friends had a house that Beatrix had bought thirty years ago when she had worked in Corsica. We were met by a clamour of friendly villagers as we arrived in the square. Numerous greetings and conversations had to take place before we were allowed to unload the vehicle of all the luggage for their long summer stay. The house had to be opened up, and I was charged with sweeping the pedestrian lanes leading to the house. Even before we finished this, other village friends arrived, and it was time for lunchtime drinks. The intimacy of life in the village was overwhelming. After lunch, Ian arranged with another villager to examine the fountain in the square that had been clogged by builders cleaning their plastering tools. It was like an extract from Clochemerle.

The next day, we walked 5 kilometres along the corniche to another village for breakfast. By the time we had visited St Erasmus Cathedral in Cervione and walked back, it was lunchtime. We had decided to climb Monte Cinto the next day, but my cough was not responding to the Mediterranean heat; Beatrix decided that I must see a Doctor and booked me an appointment for the next morning. The young Doctor was very thorough, and he concluded that my lungs were fine but that my trachea had been affected by the hay fever and my breathing would be affected. Time and fresh air would heal it, but I should avoid air conditioning. Fine, I thought, until Beatrix chipped in and said we intended to climb Monte Cinto the next day. He asked my age and said that in this heat, it would be suicidal. I said that I had climbed it before in July, but my French was not good enough to win the argument. He and Beatrix were at one on this, so after paying 30 euros for the visit, one of the objectives of the Corsican trip had to be abandoned.

We spent the afternoon clearing the garden of vegetation and cutting the oleander hedges. Ian and I pulled out the guidebooks and maps and planned an alternative walk around the Costa Verde horseshoe. We could walk out of the house, climb 1300 metres, cover 18 kilometres and avoid a 2-hour journey in both directions to get to Asco and the start of the Monte Cinto trail. It would be longer and hotter at a lower altitude, but it lacked the sense of danger that Monte Cinto promised. As it happened, it turned out to be 25 kilometres on rough trails through the maquis and took almost 8 hours.

After a lazy day recovering from the exertions of the walk, we had another drinks event in the evening and walked back under the stars with Venus providing the lighting and the ships on the Med showing against the backdrop of Elba and the Italian coast. All days were signed off with a carafe of rosé on the terrace as we were serenaded by a flock of Hirondelle and visited by brightly plumed Milan (Red Kites) that were circling on the thermals.

The final day was a walk up one of the many rivers that provide for canyoning and reveal gorgeous rock pools for swimming. We took a picnic and on our return called at a restaurant for beers and ice cream. Time had flown, Ian and I had reprised the last fifty years and had some senior adventures. They were not as crazy as our jaunts of forty or fifty years ago, but as the good doctor said, they could have been suicidal. What was more important was the celebration of a lifelong friendship. I was dropped off at the airport the next morning after breakfast at the excellent I Fratelli Angeli. The airport was cool, welcoming and efficient, I wish I could say the same for Gatwick.