Two brits four wheels

October 2009

Taking a ferry from Livorno, Italy to Bastia in Corsica was a pleasant four hours courtesy of Moby Lines, €100 and a calm sea.

Arriving in Bastia soon wrecked that calm however. Driving in busy towns or cities in a motorhome does generally wreck one’s calm in moments. Bastia, with its very small town centre – a theme shared with Calvi and Ajaccio (the capita) – provided many such driving stresses.

Busy French towns and cities really are busy by UK standards. As there always appears to be too many vehicles for the available space the adept French motorist will do just about anything and do just about anywhere in order to go and get their baguette or sit down for a coffee with friends. Examples of such parking being to park in front of no parking signs, park on the corner of busy junctions, park in bus stops, on pedestrian crossings, on pavements or double park in the lane of a busy road. In fact I witnessed the latter outside a ‘Game’ (software game shop) in Ajaccio. A police car came up in that lane, stopped behind said offending vehicle and whooped its sirens and put on its flashing blue lights. The driver ambled out of Game with his software-filled shopping bag in hand, went over to the police car, grinning and agree to move his car. The police car sat there the whole time. He fiddles around in his car for a bit, put on his seat belt, started the engine and just as he was about to leave he spotted a friend in a car in the adjacent lane that he was gracious enough not to block. His response? Have a quick chat with his friend; now they were both blocking the road. The police car just sat there patiently with blue lights flashing. After twenty seconds of pleasant exchanges between the drivers the young gamer finally proceeded to clear the lane. Any UK driver would know not to double park, would have looked very sheepish to the police and would have been lucky not to get a ticket, let alone show little urgency to move on and chat with mates across two lanes of a road they were blocking. This is the unique French driving experience.
The Corsican people seem to be generally very pleasant, much like mainland French: they exchange pleasantries, are happy to hear you speak (mangle) their language and can chip in with some English if they feel it necessary.

Corsica is a big island but feels small, as most of it is very mountainous and not inhabited, so people are packed into communities. The driving is quite tiring as the roads are extremely bendy both horizontally and vertically.

Arriving in October means that most campsites are closed for winter. As we discovered on arrival, Corsica has a no free-camping policy so it is illegal to do so. However with virtually no campsites open you have to park somewhere. A couple of days into the journey we discussed this with a person at l’Office de Tourisme and they explained a ‘tolerance’ for free-camping in the winter months. In other words, the authorities turn a blind-eye.

By contrast in summer, given the difficult road network, the compact town centres and the increase in visitors, Corsica must be busting to the seams. I think I would prefer even less to move a motorhome around the island in the warmer months.

Bastia was too difficult to park in so we aborted and headed north to Cap Corse. The Cap is like a pan handle that is mountainous and forested.
Calvi is a relatively pretty town with an up-market marina, a ferry terminal and a range of restaurants and bars although they mostly seem to specialise in ice creams.
Ajaccio, the capital is much more a large town. There are retail areas outside of town, busy bus routes and lots of people. It is a cruise ship stop. There is an old town centre to see and Napoleon’s birthplace is there. However, on visiting the Cathedral there, were Napoleon was baptised, I did manage to break one of the old pew chairs as I got up. I had to explain this, in French to the caretaker; he was very good about this and pointed out all the other chairs broken over time. Phew! I did not want to be known as ‘the Englishman who vandalised the cathedral of our great hero Napoleon’.


Porto, as seen in the photo below, is a very pretty little town that straddles two adjacent coves. It lies between Calvi and Ajaccio on the coastal road and seems to have little function other than a place for tourists to stop and do/see things whilst on-the-coastal-road- between-Calvi-and-Ajaccio. In other words it only exists to serve tourists and tourists only go there because it exists (to serve tourists), else it would simply be a nice cove to see for ten minutes, take sandwiches, have a leak and move on elsewhere. On this tour I appreciate how much tourism contributes to communities and economies.

I am currently in Propriano, another marina town with a ferry terminal. Nice restaurants, bijoux shops and even bio (organic) produce shopping. A very large private yacht is moored here with a British dependency ensign flapping vigorously in the wind. Next stops will be Bonifacio, Porto-Vecchio and then presumably Bastia to make our exist back to L’Italie.

I had hoped to paraglide here but all the sites I have passed have been reasonably inaccessible to me without the aid of a local paragliding business for transport. Given that it is winter this is not going to happen. There is one coastal site on the east coast that I am hoping will not be blown out by the impending strong winds (Corsica has a festival of wind coming up, which is a clue to the weather!). All being well I might get one day of flying in before leaving. I would not come to Corsica to fly for sure.
So, as stunning as the Corsica scenery is and as nice as its people are I think our stay here will be quite short.