Not such a nice day as the previous few on the mainland, but it gave me a chance to mess around with my camera (it has a sunrise setting, which just about managed to capture the sun's rays coming through the clouds.) Then it was time for the bus. Aaah the bus... what can I say about the bus? Well, I think I'll share a valuable lesson with you that I learnt on this trip: the French do not have Stugeron. Anyone who knows me will probably be able to see why this might be a problem on a 3 hour bus journey on horrendously twisting rural roads. I lasted 15 minutes before the inevitable happened. I think we'll leave it at that. We arrived in Porto Vecchio on the South Eastern coast of the island at about 12h where we were going to have to wait til 17h30 for the connecting bus service. Corsica is the first place I have been in France which does not have an efficient integrated transport system, I think I have become too accustomed to this luxury and returning to Aberdeen will be a problem where the only option is FirstBus. But anyway, we were on Corsica, the sun was shining etc so we headed off to find some food. Corsica is famous for its charcuterie and cheese so we ordered Corsican Salad so we could try some. I wasn't a big fan of the ham but the cheese was really good. There are some photos of it somwhere, I think on Ruth's camera so when she gets round to uploading them I'll add them in. Porto Vecchio is not a very big town and there is not really much to do. We had pretty much exhausted all exploration possibilities after about 2 hours so then we just hung around in the sun, reading the paper, taking photos and getting strange looks from the locals. Ice cream was also consumed. :-)
Around half 4 we decided to go and find a cafe somewhere to get something to drink (but mostly because we needed to use their toilets...). We found one right across from the bus stop where we had been told by the tourist office that the bus to Bonifacio leaves from. So we were just chilling out with some grenadine perrier (oooooh!!) getting more strange looks because the Corsicans obviously thought we were crazy to be sitting outside in the middle of winter, when the barman came out for a smoke and a chat. We were telling him that we were just waiting for the bus to Bonifacio when he comes out with "what bus to Bonifacio?". Cue minor panic while we try and find out about this bus. I ran down to the travel agents were another customer tells me something along the lines of "the tourist office have no idea what they are talking about, the bus leaves from the port at the bottom of the hill". So I ran back to the cafe, where some more guys have appeared and Ruth is trying to explain the situation. Well, to cut a long story short we ended up running like crazy people with all our luggage down this huge long hill to the bus stop. Luckily, Corsica is not Switzerland and things do not run like clockwork. The bus was still there, mostly because the driver was having a fag and we made it to Bonifacio by the skin of our teeth. Bonifacio is right on the Southern tip of the island, facing Sardinia. Miro (apologies for lack of accent if you're reading this) was renting a house with 4 of her friends from Rennes. The house was the top 3 floors of a building right in the centre of Bonifacio, with a terrace looking out over the sea to Sardinia. Here's some pics but it's really hard to capture the incredible view so I gave up trying fairly quickly!
Miro's friends were Bethany, Shannon, Eduardo and Nate. I know them all from various nights out in Rennes and on the occasional Tuesday when me and Nate decide that conditions are right for playing Ultimate. Dinner was good craic and I slept like a log.
Friday morning, it was already nice and warm when I got up. We headed down the cliffs on one of the many, many staircases in Bonifacio, due to the fact that it is built on the top of a cliff. Thewater was amazingly clear and there were loads of little fish everywhere. Proper tropical it were. We also saw an octupus trying to beach itself so we stalked it for a while but it proved too good at hiding/swimming away so I didn't have the chance to get a photo. I joined in the swimming but sat out and watched everyone else do crazy jumping off rocks type things.
While I was swimming I managed to stand on some coral. I then spent most of the afternoon sitting on the terrace trying to get it out, with varying degrees of success. Still, it was nice to just sit in the sun and not do very much. Apart from pick coral...
For dinner, we headed down some other stairs to the port at the bottom of the cliffs to a restaurant called "The Kissing Pigs" because a) it had a heart next to it in Miro's guidebook and b) it was owned by the cousin of someone Nate had hitched a lift from earlier in the week. I stayed away from charcuterie this time and went for fish with ratatouille. I have no idea what kind of fish it was, but it was good.
Saturday morning involved some more frantic bus-catching, involving Miro being unable to find her passport. Turns out she had just put it in a very,very safe place which she couldn't remember. Unfortunately, due to the previously discussed transport system we had a 4 hour wait at Porto Vecchio again. Me and Miro wandered up to the old town on the hill and went to a bakery to buy some Corsican specialities for lunch. This time, "Corsican" turned out to a be ratatouille flatbread type thing and a cake made with chestnuts. Due to continued lack of Stugeron I stuck with savoury things but Miro assures me the cake was delicious. I suppose I will just have to go back and try one.
A thankfully uneventful bus ride later, we arrived in Bastia, right in the North of the island. After hanging out in Miro's crew's hotel room, accompanied by some attempts at telling spooky stories in honour of Hallowe'en, we headed to the boat. This time, it was the Mega Smerelda, an much nicer ship than the Mega Express V but also much busier since it was the end of the holidays. Unfortunately, the cinema, swimming pool and sauna were all closed but there was plenty of entertainment to be had sitting in the bar watching the kids going wild chasing the disco lights. There are no pullman seats on the Mega Smerelda so we had a cabin for the return crossing.
Maybe it was due to the ace lasagne that I had for dinner (Italian chefs again) or just general accumulated tiredness, but my top bunk was THE COMFIEST BED EVER and I slept like a log. Again. Shame about the 6am tannoy...
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