Two Go to Corsica

[Taran_Las]

In the photo of the colourful nets can anyone else see the head and beak of a bird? Or, like DBK, do I also need some new specs

 

[DBK]

We've been plagued by clouds for days but when you want some to turn up and pose artistically for the sunset they virtually abandon us.

 

[DBK]

In the photo of the colourful nets can anyone else see the head and beak of a bird? Or, like DBK, do I also need some new specs

In the top left? It certainly looks like one. From a different angle it looks like a heron or egret perhaps?

 

[Lenny HB]

The first two hours of of driving today were quite testing. Endless bends on the coast road and some scary drops in places. The drop to the sea is at least 100m according to Google Maps. I'm now almost regretting my decision to drive around the island anti-clockwise - it puts me the driver nearest the edge!

What a wimp, that's a nice big wide road compared to a lot we end up on, it's even got a white line down the centre, what more could you want.

 

[Lenny HB]

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[DBK]

What a wimp, that's a nice big wide road compared to a lot we end up on, it's even got a white line down the centre, what more could you want.

I've come to the conclusion the white line is there literally to define the middle of the road. It should not be interpreted as implying vehicles can pass each other either side of it.

Henri: Here mon ami Paul, take this machine and paint a line down the middle of this road.

Paul: But the road is very narrow in places....

Henri: Don't worry that will be very useful when we are driving home drunk at night.

 

[Lenny HB]

I've come to the conclusion the white line is there literally to define the middle of the road. It should not be interpreted as implying vehicles can pass each other either side of it.

Nar car coming the other way was well inside the line.

Had a road in Greece where the road took a 90° right over a bridge, my side of the double white lines the road was about 8' wide the other side 2'.

 

[DBK]

Another 35 minute drive according the Garmin which took us two hours - but we did stop a lot to take photos.

We took the D81 "wiggly road" south from Galéria at the top of the map to Porto at the bottom. Most of the road was a good width but there were a couple of short sections which were quite narrow.

In a larger scale we are now here.

We've probably not done much more than a quarter of the coastline so at some point we may have to stop taking the scenic route and start cutting off a few corners. But for now the scenic stuff is living up to expectations.

There were several large viewing platforms and lots of smaller stopping places. Motorcycles outnumbered cars two to one.

The above group are Italian but there were also groups from Luxembourg, Austria, Germany and of course France. The most notable absentees are UK riders. We saw one bike on the ferry but none since. I had to look the bike nearest the camera up to identify it. An MV Augusta 800 I think. Starting price on one website €22,000.

This afternoon I walked on a track.

Through country like this.

Where Charlie took the opportunity to cool down.

We are staying at Camping Funtana à l'Ora, CC65139. It isn't listed in the 2019 ACSI book but when I enquired at reception they said they did take ACSI cards and electricity came free with it - the site is heavily shaded making solar of limited use.

They have a good restaurant with a feu de bois so we will try their pizzas tomorrow.

 

[Figaro]

I hope that pool Charlie found is less stinky than it looks
Or did he have a dip in the sea later ?

 

[DBK]

I hope that pool Charlie found is less stinky than it looks
Or did he have a dip in the sea later ?

He had a good roll around in the dust when we got back to the site and I'm not sure what he smells of now. Supper had a lot of garlic in it so my nose may not be working at the moment.

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[DBK]

A quiet day today, we walked into Porto and had a coffee at a restaurant. There's nothing to see in the village but the exercise probably did us some good - it was uphill all the way back.

On the natural history front the day started well when I had a good view of a male Corsican finch with its bright yellow breast. Native to Corsica and Sardinia it sadly didn't hang about long enough for me to return with my camera. But I did get the chance of snapping this European Hornet, Vespa crabo. Good to see one as the invasive Asian Hornet Vespa vellutina is becoming very widespread, having reached even the UK now.

We ate in the camp restaurant tonight and tried to finish our pizzas but they were too big even for me.

€32 with half a litre of wine. Standard price for pizzas from what we've seen on menus outside restaurants. Corsica isn't a cheap place for example LPG was €1.14 a litre when I filled up a few days ago, diesel €1.62 a litre.

Tomorrow we will attempt one of the most famous stretches of road in Corsica, Les Calanques de Piana. It will be busy I fear and is single track in places. It may take us some time. We will be travelling in the opposite direction to this video - putting me nearest the edge.

 

[Lenny HB]

We ate in the camp restaurant tonight and tried to finish our pizzas but they were too big even for me.

View attachment 307102

€32 with half a litre of wine. Standard price for pizzas from what we've seen on menus outside restaurants. Corsica isn't a cheap place for example LPG was €1.14 a litre when I filled up a few days [/MEDIA]

At that price they could of at least served it on plates.

 

[Lenny HB]

.

 

[DBK]

At that price they could of at least served it on plates.

They were just take away boxes cut in half!

 

[Lenny HB]

They were just take away boxes cut in half!

I noticed.

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[bigtree]

The road can't be that bad going by the coach at 2.33 in the video.

 

[DBK]

The road can't be that bad going by the coach at 2.33 in the video.

There is a sign at the entrance banning vehicles over 12m long. I hope we don't meet one.

 

[DBK]

A bit of a late start today for some unknown reason though it might possibly be down to my digestive tract taking all night to process last night's pizza - I still felt full when I woke up.

After shopping in Porto we continued south on the D81 (Is there any other road on Corsica? It feels like we've been on it for days.) and soon entered the Calanques de Piana stretch.

It was reasonably quiet on the first bit and there was room to pull over and take a photo. Followers of this thread might notice the lack of clouds which makes a change but the forecast is looking good here for the forseable future.

Porto is at the head of the bay nearest the camera, the furtherest headland is the Scandola nature reserve which is both a marine and land reserve.

We didn't stop through the touristy bit of this road but I took some dashcam footage, here shown at nearly twice actual speed to avoid boring you all.



If you wind the video forward to 11:41:30 (using the dash cam clock) you can see my encounter with an A Class.

This is the view looking back from where the video ends.

It's not a difficult road to drive but it must be chaos in August.

We have stopped at Camping le Mandriale, CC55991 which is €20 a night.

We have been on the island just under two weeks now and at first glance it may look as if we are behind schedule but after we get south of Ajaccio, which we should on Monday, we will be using main roads more frequently. The wiggly roads are fun but we may reach a point of being "wiggled out" if we stay too long on them.

 

[hilldweller]

They were just take away boxes cut in half!

So you didn't even qualify for a full box.

 

[veevee]

John, is driving these small coastal roads enjoyable or is it just the challenge? Do you get to see anything if you are the driver?

They are not loaded questions but wonder how you see this type of driving.

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[DBK]

John, is driving these small coastal roads enjoyable or is it just the challenge? Do you get to see anything if you are the driver?

They are not loaded questions but wonder how you see this type of driving.

So far we've found lots of places to pull over and stop to take photographs and the roads seem pretty quiet too with the exception of the Calanques road yesterday, which was fairly busy and all the stopping places had cars in them - belonging to people stopping to take photos.

I've only had to reverse twice. I think the trick is not to let cars build up behind you because then, when you do have to reverse it is clear behind.

The scenery has been exceptional and we wouldn't have seen it without going on these roads but I'll admit it was a bit nerve wracking the first time I encountered them - but I'm more used to them now.

 

[DBK]

I was thinking about upgrading my Lumix Bridge camera and/or my Lumix compact but the more I research, the more I come to the conclusion that for general travel photography my Samsung phone is probably more than adequate .
There are several articles online where professionals & serious amateurs suggest this over lugging a DSLR & lenses around.
Yes I know the limitations.

I think for recording where you've been a phone is more than adequate and very simple to use. There are several on this thread taken with my phone (Sony Xperia Z5 Compact) and I don't think they stand out as being of poorer quality than the others. The photo of the cheeses on a supermarket in post #114 above is one of them although the one below it of the square cheese packet was taken with my Olympus camera. The phone shot also has enough pixels for it to be enlarged in post #117 without losing any noticeable quality. .

 

[DBK]

Just updating my bird list. New ones at the top, the old list published earlier below it.

Crag martin
Collared dove
Spotless starling
Corsican finch
Comorant - a juvenile with white breast
Swift (of some sort, might be Pallid, TBC)
Coot
Moorhen
Little egret
Yellow-legged gull.

Grey heron
Common tern
Short toed eagle
Red kite
Common buzzard
Kestrel
Raven
Hooded crow
Yellowhammer
Great tit
Blue tit
Lesser Spotted flycatcher
Starling (ordinary one but Corsica has spotless)
House sparrow
House martin
Swallow
Mallard
Mute swan
European bee-eater
Collered dove
Rock dove
Redstart
Hoopoe
Green woodpecker
Magpie
Jay
Treecreeper - based on distribution (Italian coast) probably short-toed
Blackbird

 

[DBK]

We spent last night at a very pleasant site, Camping le Mandriale, north of Cargèse, CC55991.

The guy who owns it is a bit of a farmer and the field next door had goats, sheep and even llamas!

€20 a night including electricity. The site is being expanded and will be quiet big eventually.

We moved on a short way today to just outside Ajaccio, Corsica's biggest city and with traffic to suit. Coming here saw a highpoint - after nearly two weeks on the island we found ourselves on a straight road and the van got up to a reckless speed of 55mph and changed into, wait for it, 6th gear! The first time since we arrived.

We are staying on a very run down but otherwise clean site, Camping Barbicaja just west of Ajaccio, CC68002. It was a bit of a shock coming here as there are people everywhere. We have grown used to not seeing crowds the last two weeks. . But it's still pretty.

We will move on again tomorrow and see some Megalithic stones.

 

[DBK]

It's getting warmer here now and this put us off visiting any ruins yesterday afternoon so we holed up for the night at Camping Vigna Maggiore near Olmeto, which I can't help myself pronouncing Omlet.
It's in ACSI and is CC58786 and at €16 a night with the ACSI discount is the cheapest place we've stayed on in Corsica apart from the free aire on Cap Corse.

It was a huge site and had several entrances. It was also a site, it must be a Corsican thing, where the entrance to the camping area isn't where you think it is. After booking in at reception, where the lady took pity on me after listening to my painful French and switched to fluent English we took the obvious track and quickly found ourselves back on the main road again.

When we eventually found the right way in it was a struggle finding a decent pitch. It was another former olive orchard on a hill. We ended up in a section far from civilisation with the local toilet block closed off. So we just pretended we were on an aire and it was fine. The nearest electric point was wrapped in plastic but it was easily teased up at a corner.

Finding the loo emptying point was a challenge. I button-holed a young bloke in a golf buggy who gave me a fun cross-country ride across the site to the service point by reception. I'd already inspected this when looking for the dustbins and knew it didn't have a toilet dump but my host insisted I could use the grey water drain, which I viewed with scepticism as it had quite a fine grate over it. I've used points like this before and the trick is to have a stick handy. Fortunately, the All Knowing Lady from Reception was at hand and directed my driver back to the only open toilet block on the site. Even when we arrived we couldn't find what we were looking for at first but then I spotted it! This was a first, a camouflaged cassette emptying point. It was surrounded by trees and encased in dark wood. Sadly, I forgot to photograph it for Jim's collection.

I never did find the dustbins.

Part 2 to follow.

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[DBK]

This morning we visited Filitosa which my guide book tells me is the most famous prehistoric site in Corsica. To be fair, compared to sites you might see in Northern Portugal, Northern Spain and of course Brittany it is a bit underwhelming but it has one specific feature of interest - the anthropomorphic menhirs.

€9 a head to enter, dogs free but we left Charlie in the van where it was cooler. On entry the first menhir you see is this one.

And sadly it is a reproduction and its only recently been swapped I think as my pre-reading all showed the original was still in place.

However, it shows the face and weapon of a figure carved (originally) about three thousand years ago.

Filitosa had been occupied by humans for a long time, under this naturally weathered boulder evidence of occupation from the early neolithic period (6,000BC) have been found.

The site has a central mound and around it are a few lines of stones showing where houses once stood. On the mound itself are a few small rooms.

And in close-up.

Some might remember from my account of our trip to Sicily that I had a problem with Cyclopean walls in that we went to a place famous for its Cyclopean walls but I forgot to check what one looked like beforehand. The result was I only managed to photograph one by complete accident as I didn't know what I was looking for.

I can now recognise a Cyclopean wall and that's them in the shots above and particularly in this one from the original wall around the settlement.

The distinctive feature is the use of large unworked stones.

You next come across a small group of the anthropomorphic menhirs.

The tall stones near the bottom are the bases of menhirs. The early Christians saw these figures as pagan emblems so they destroyed the menhirs and left their remains in piles.

The figure on the left had the clearest features.

Beyond the main settlement is a group of five more statues grouped around what we were told was a thousand year old olive tree.

Here are a few shots of them. To reach here we crossed a small stream that probably provided the water for the settlement. Frogs were croaking loudly from it. Were they descendents of frogs which knew and were probably eaten by the original inhabitants? If so they sounded as if they were still sore about what happened.

This one is possibly thought to be a phallic symbol.

I would have liked to have ended the day at a site next to a beach but the site's website say they are closed from 12:00 to 16:30 so we are on a small site, Pero Longo, CC68153, another olive grove but we have managed to find a good pitch.

Which is here on the map of Corsica.

Finally, two photographs of critters from this site.

There are hundreds of these caterpillars.

What they are will have to wait.

 

[Emmit]

This morning we visited Filitosa which my guide book tells me is the most famous prehistoric site in Corsica. To be fair, compared to sites you might see in Northern Portugal, Northern Spain and of course Brittany it is a bit underwhelming but it has one specific feature of interest - the anthropomorphic menhirs.

€9 a head to enter, dogs free but we left Charlie in the van where it was cooler. On entry the first menhir you see is this one.

View attachment 307918

And sadly it is a reproduction and its only recently been swapped I think as my pre-reading all showed the original was still in place.

However, it shows the face and weapon of a figure carved (originally) about three thousand years ago.

Filitosa had been occupied by humans for a long time, under this naturally weathered boulder evidence of occupation from the early neolithic period (6,000BC) have been found.

View attachment 307921

The site has a central mound and around it are a few lines of stones showing where houses once stood. On the mound itself are a few small rooms.

View attachment 307924

And in close-up.

View attachment 307925

Some might remember from my account of our trip to Sicily that I had a problem with Cyclopean walls in that we went to a place famous for its Cyclopean walls but I forgot to check what one looked like beforehand. The result was I only managed to photograph one by complete accident as I didn't know what I was looking for.

I can now recognise a Cyclopean wall and that's them in the shots above and particularly in this one from the original wall around the settlement.

View attachment 307926

The distinctive feature is the use of large unworked stones.

You next come across a small group of the anthropomorphic menhirs.

View attachment 307927

The tall stones near the bottom are the bases of menhirs. The early Christians saw these figures as pagan emblems so they destroyed the menhirs and left their remains in piles.

The figure on the left had the clearest features.

View attachment 307929

Beyond the main settlement is a group of five more statues grouped around what we were told was a thousand year old olive tree.

View attachment 307931

Here are a few shots of them. To reach here we crossed a small stream that probably provided the water for the settlement. Frogs were croaking loudly from it. Where they descendents of frogs which knew and were probably eaten by the original inhabitants? If so they sounded as if they were still sore about what happened.

View attachment 307932 View attachment 307933 View attachment 307934 View attachment 307935

This one is possibly thought to be a phallic symbol.

View attachment 307936

I would have liked to have ended the day at a site next to a beach but the site's website say they are closed from 12:00 to 16:30 so we are on a small site, Pero Longo, CC68153, another olive grove but we have managed to find a good pitch.

View attachment 307937

Which is here on the map of Corsica.

View attachment 307920

Finally, two photographs of critters from this site.

View attachment 307938

There are hundreds of these caterpillars.

View attachment 307939

What they are will have to wait.

Deleted.

 

[DBK]

The caterpillar is a Gypsy Moth I believe. The beetle is going to take a little longer.

 

[DBK]

Before I forget, an addition to the bird list.

Great spotted woodpecker

There are more exotic black and white woodpeckers in Europe but here in Corsica it is GSWs only I believe according to my book.

 

[DBK]

We are going to chill out for a few days near a beach although tomorrow morning we will go and see some more old stones before returning here afterwards.

"Here" is Camping Campèole L'Avena, CC58772 which will be our most expensive site to date at around €27 a night although those without a dog can shave a few euros off that. It is however, a good site, well positioned, level (!) and with a good MH service point although it wants a €2 coin for water.

And in satellite view. Note the intriguing tracks leading over the headland. We will try and explore them.

The beach here is almost clear of sea grass.

Looking left.

Looking right.

And looking straying ahead watching Charlie going for a swim. Trying to fetch the couple in the inflatable canoe I think.

And here's another Charlie Fetches a Stick video.



After his swim I tried with mixed success to photograph him jumping.

The crouch of anticipation.

The take off.

And possibly in the air - but you can't really tell.

Another attempt required, ideally with a dog not the same colour as the beach.

I did a bit of geocaching this afternoon and found one travel bug and dropped off two I had brought from the UK - which was a relief as I was thinking Corsican geocaches were all impossible to find.

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