Corsica Part 2: A Corsican overview

We're home!  It was a very lonnnnggggg 24 hour trip home, but Juniper was as good a little girl as you could ask for, I had 3 people to help me, and there was only one crazy major incident where Clark and Juniper and I were almost not allowed to board the plane from Paris to Montreal.  So really, what more could you ask for?

Perhaps before I launch into some of the details and highlights of our two week adventure, I thought it might be interesting to first give a more general overview of Corsica, and the trip as a whole. 

I've said this already, but Corsica is a stunning island.  I asked one woman I met along the way if she'd ever been to Canada, and she replied  (paraphrased and translated, that is) "no - not many people from Corsica travel that much - why would we?  We've got the mountains and the water, and all four seasons - the sun and the snow and the autumn leaves.  Life is good here".  I can understand the sentiment.  The mountains are truly this massive backbone that winds its way from one tip of the island to the other, smack down the middle.  Some of them are almost as high as 3000 metres above sea level, boasting snowy, glacial tips. 

The water is the Mediterranean sea, which is just as clear and beautiful as you would expect, and can be accessed from any number of sandy beaches. 

 
There are many towns, of course, that have been established along the coastline, but I was surprised by the number of towns that also exist, as if by magic, clinging along the steep, rocky mountainous cliffs.  Much of Corsican architecture, especially in these smaller, mountainous towns, consist of what appear to be centuries-old stone buildings, still in use - making it feel as though you have truly stepped back in time as you wind your way through their narrow streets from one crazy mountain pass to the next.

 
The history of Corsica is incredibly rich, and long.  Though it is currently part of France, it has passed hands more than once, and consequently been under siege a number of times. There are constant reminders, for instance, of the time it spent under Genoese rule, in the form of distinctive Genoese defensive towers that pop up all along the coastline, many dating back to the 16th century. Certainly, however, the history dates much farther back than this.  For instance, Clark and Juniper and I visited sites that have ruins dating back to 2000 BC, and all five of us made the trip to a town called Bonifacio, which is thought to be one of the places described in The Odyssey (more on these adventures later).

Genoese tower

There is clearly an independence or "freedom fighter" undercurrent that runs through the island, both in organized form - ie, the "National Liberation Front of Corsica", and also in more vernacular forms. For instance, all the signs indicating town names are written in both French and Corsican, but many of these (especially in the smaller towns), have the French spelling either blacked out with spray paint, or shot through with bullet holes, or both.  (I really should have gotten a picture of one of these, but didn't).  There is also a fair bit of "freedom"-related graffiti around, and some clearly sympathetic/hero-worship attitudes towards one relatively famous contemporary independence fighter named Yvan Colonna who allegedly shot and killed Corsican prefect Claud Erignac.

In terms of language, I spoke almost entirely French the whole time I was there.  I am not nearly as good as I used to be, but evidently good enough that I could understand and be understood.  It was actually refreshing to not have people respond to me in English, as is inevitably the case in Quebec.

I hadn't realized this before we got there, but Corsica is actually a very popular tourist destination - particularly (and unsurprisingly) for French mainlanders and Italians.  One of the towns we stayed in, for instance, goes from a population of 7000 to 80000 in peak tourist season. November, however, is NOT tourist season.  This is likely weather related - It was relatively chilly the whole time we were there (it averaged about 15 degrees),  and it was often rainy and foggy.  As I will describe in greater detail in subsequent posts, this was both a blessing and a curse… it meant that we didn't have to battle tonnes of other people to see sites, and things like accommodations were significantly cheaper.  But it also meant that there were many many things that just weren't open.  We'd wander into the town centre, with all these lovely looking shops that had "fermeture annuelle" in the window.  You'd go to a restaurant - closed.  Museum?  Closed. That got frustrating pretty quickly.

Also frustrating is the French custom of closing everything between 12-2pm.  Or 3, or 3:30, or basically whenever they feel like opening again.  So the stores and sites that were, in fact, open in the off-season were often not open when we were wandering around.  This often also meant restaurants.  You would find very few restaurants open at lunch, and then the ones that opened for supper usually only opened at 7:30pm…. ie, when Juniper had gone to sleep.  Consequently, we ate out only twice the entire time we were there.  Seriously - twice.  Good thing we had booked apartment-style accommodations!  Also, I thought I'd be eating lots of fresh, local cheap seafood the whole time I was there - wrong again!  The supermarkets didn't even carry fresh fish, and when you found it (for instance at the market), it was ridiculously expensive.  Perhaps that is also different in the peak 
 season.  

One of the two restaurants we ate at. The fish was fresh, but I'm not used to getting it whole.

There were, however, always cafés and boulangeries open, with beautiful baguettes and pastries, and we took full advantage.  Chocolate croissants and fresh warm baguettes were often a daily occurrence. 

 Also ubiquitous were a large range of local cheeses (usually sheep cheeses) and local charcuterie (smoked meat).  One of the most popular of these was Figatellu, or pork liver, which, to me looked as gross as it sounded.  Charcuterie was one of the few things I was just not interested in trying.

Our day-to-day involved a lot of driving to various different towns and sites.  This was not as easy as it sounds.  First off,  here is a picture of our car - mom booked it from Canada, with the intent of getting something big enough for all five of us (including the car seat) and our luggage.  Though it was big by European standards, what we ended up with was, in truth, a hatchback only slightly bigger than our little Suzuki Swift at home.  That meant that those of us in the backseat (ie me and mom, with Juniper's car sea in the middle), were squished in so tightly that we couldn't move, and had no hope of doing up our seat belts.  Mom and I both got very used to lifting ourselves up and over just in order to get the door closed.  

Secondly, driving in Corsica is more than a little ridiculous - both in the city and in between towns.  Ajaccio, for instance, (the capital city where we stayed for the first week), was built long before cars, and therefore the streets are very narrow with no real places to park.  This does not stop the locals - the cars are parked bumper to bumper all through the city streets at all times of the day, and often you'll find multiple cars on the sidewalks, and double parked in the middle of the street. This makes negotiating traffic especially difficult. 

  
Driving between towns is another thing altogether - due to the mountainous terrain, the roads are… insane.  They snake their way up and down cliffs - these tiny narrow roads with solid mountain on one side, and sheer drop-offs on the other. Guard rails?  Only if you're on one of the "major highways".  Usually it is just a few bricks between you and your death.  The turns are all hairpin, and therefore also blind, and the Corsican drivers, to quote our guidebook, "drive with a panache that verges on the irresponsible".  I couldn't have said it better myself.  Here is a little video - don't watch it if you get motion sick!

OK - that's enough for now.  I'll do at least one more post (maybe two?) with some pictures and stories from our actual travel adventures.  Stay tuned!