A few hundred metres from the Col de Bavella (Corse) with the Bavella massif looming behind us.
A few hundred metres from the Col de Bavella (Corse) with the Bavella massif looming behind us.
(Click on the thumbnail photos to view a larger version.)
Day
7: We arrived in Ajaccio at sunrise and
headed off immediately towards Propriano. The first few km were on
the shoulder of a busy 4 lane boulevard. As we cycled by the airport
I got a flat tire. I replaced the tube (always
quicker than finding and repairing the puncture - that can be done
later) and we continued on our way. As we left this route
nationale at about 15 km from the ship, Carol noticed that my
back wheel was wobbling. A quick check confirmed a broken spoke
(cassette side, of course - they always are!).
A 60ish cyclist passed by at that moment, typically all decked out in
bright red spandex and helmet and riding a fine looking US Postal
Service bike, and I asked him if he knew where to find a bike shop in
Ajaccio. He gave me directions and we headed back on to the highway
towards Ajaccio. A couple of km later he reappeared beside us and
told us he'd lead us to the shop. The road led through several
ronds points (traffic circles) and on one our leader was
crowded by a car. He yelled and waved his arm at the motorist who
continued all the way around the circle to take up the argument. Car
and bike stopped and they had a noisy, arm-waving shouting match for
about a minute before the car sped off - a small taste of hot
Corsican temper. Our hero, Jean-Claude, was well known at the bike
shop and our problem was dealt with immediately. He asked us where we
were going that day and I showed him on my Michelin map. He told me
that the route I had picked was not a good one and that I should go
by way of Coti-Chiavari
(pronounced
COATEE KEY A VARY). I looked at the map
and saw the chevrons (marks like this >,
indicating a hill) and the switchbacks
on the route he recommended and no chevrons, no switchbacks on the
one I had chosen. I pointed that out to him and he said "Bah!
Michelin! ZERO!!" He told us that despite the map there were
SERIOUS climbs on my chosen route. "Vingt pour cent!!" he
said. (20 % - although I'm sure he exaggerated). So, bike fixed, we headed back out of the city, left
the route nationale again and stopped at 10:30 in Porticcio
for a quick breakfast and to buy lunch stuff. At Verghia, we turned
east toward Coti-Chiavari, as directed by our helpful tour guide
Jean-Claude. The road snaked relentlessly upward for 4 km and then
developed into a series of genuine switchbacks crossing back and
forth up the forested face of the mountain for 8 more km and granting
us occasional views of the deepening valley beside us and the azure
Mediterranean far below. We stopped in Coti-Chiavari at the top for a
cool drink and a water refill and then had a beautiful twisting
descent with a great view of the sea below. However, once we bottomed
out, the road surface became very poor - pot holes, many patches -
and the climbs and descents were very steep. We had about 8 km of
this poor surface before regaining roads with smoother pavement. From
the moment we turned toward Coti-Chiavari until we rode into
Propriano at the end of the day our ride consisted of a series of
steep climbs and steep descents, some long, some short, while the
temperature hovered in the mid-thirties (that's
mid-nineties for you folks in that last little island of Fahrenheit,
the USA). Propriano turned out to be a
long strip of restaurants, hotels, bars, etc., ringing the
port. (today's cycling
distance: 102 km; today's high temperature:
35°C/95°F)
The village of Zonza (Corse) with the Aiguilles de Bavella (the 'needles' of Bavella) towering behind.
Day
8: We started with a steep 2 km climb out of Propriano to the
route nationale where we turned south and had an immediate
fast descent. Carol, trailing, had to stop to let a flock of sheep
cross the highway. After about 8 km we turned east, following the
Rizzanèse river for about 5 km before starting the 9 km climb
to Santa Lucia di Tallano. The last 500
metre stretch was very steep, so steep that I finally gave up and
walked my loaded bike up the last 200 metres into the village where
we stopped for our lunch. We climbed out of Santa Lucia and were
treated to some great views of the high mountains ahead and the deep
valleys below us. We descended into Levia on a nice smooth road and
stopped for a drink and water refill. From there the last 9 km were
up, down and then steeply up into Zonza. We got occasional
glimpses of the Aiguilles de Bavella which tower over Zonza. It's a
spectacular site on the high rocky spine that runs up the middle of
this mountainous island. We stayed at the Hotel Aiglon - beautifully
decorated room, great meal (but no credit
cards!). Despite the climb - we were about 800 metres higher
than our starting point in Propriano - it was an easier day than
yesterday's 102 km marathon. (41 km;
32°C/90°F)
Day 9: After breakfast we began the 430 metre climb from Zonza to
the Col de Bavella, at 1218 metres the second highest on Corsica. We
had spectacular views of the Bavella massif as we approached
the col. (A col is a mountain pass. The
Corsican word for a col is a bocca.) There were
a lot of people at the col, many of them hikers. They arrived
in their cars and then set off on the various walking routes that
spread out from the top, returning to the cars after their hike. The
ride down from the top began very fast and curvy through pine forest.
The large pine cones on the road were a hazard. We stopped a couple
of km down to allow our rims to cool down - after all the braking we
were doing they were too hot to touch. We came suddenly to a
narrowing in the road, very poorly surfaced, curving around a rock
face. I doubt that 2 cars could pass each other here but it lasted
for only about 200 metres. We had to stop again where a tree had
fallen on the side of the road and traffic was edging by. Then the
hill steepened and narrowed again suddenly and the road surface
became patchy with gravel and potholes. I
hit one of the latter and just barely escaped going over the
handlebars but down I went nonetheless. No bike damage and minor
'road rash' to me but it marked the beginning of major road
construction as they were widening the road all the way up from the
sea to the col. Except for a few short paved sections, the
road was gravel and littered with construction equipment, idle on
this Sunday afternoon. We had to pick our way through 20 km of this
mess before finally reaching the sea at Solenzara.
(Jean-Claude, our rescuer in Ajaccio, had warned us
that the road might be closed from the col down to the sea.)
The 30 km descent from the col had taken 3 hours! This
section of the eastern coast is flat with many beaches. We turned
north and had an easy 35 km ride into Aléria. At dinner we
chatted with the couple at the next table. He was originally from
Corsica. He told me his grandfather had been a shepherd involved in the
annual 'transhumance' (the seasonal movement
of livestock between upland and lowland pastures), driving his
flock down to this eastern plain for the winter and then back up into
the mountains in the spring. He said that until the end of the second
world war virtually no one lived on this east coast permanently. As a
result, much of the development along this stretch is less than 60
years old. It had been an interesting day. Carol took 19 photos, all
of them of the awesome mountain we had crossed. (This was in her
pre-digital days when she had to carefully husband her
cache of films. Now, of course, with her 2 Gb memory card, 100 photos per day
would not be out of the question for a day at the Col de Bavella.)
(79 km; 32°C/90°F)
Day
10: We had to wait until 9 AM for the grocery store to open to
get our lunch stuff because there were no villages on our route from
Aléria to Corte (pronounced CORTAY even though
there's no accent on the 'e' - unlike forte which is
NOT pronounced FORTAY, but rather FORT !! Sorry! Pet
peeve!!) The road to Corte followed the Tavignano
river the whole way so, even though we were going upstream, we
knew it wouldn't be too tough. The river was really pretty
- small cascades into deep pools, tumbling over rocks, sometimes
right beside us, sometimes far below. There were more climbs than
descents and the temperature was climbing. Water was becoming a
problem - no place to refill! We ate our usual lunch - carrots, a
tomato, yogurt (so runny at this temperature that we
simply drank it) - in the shade beside the road at 12:30.
(One thing to note about this 35°C temperature
is that when you take into account the humidity it still feels
like 35°C. It's
not only hot, it's hot and dry!) One last climb and we
were in the outskirts of Corte where we finally found a café
for a cool drink. I guzzled down a litre of cold water before my beer
- Pietra, the beer of Corsica, made, in part, with chestnut flour -
really! As we climbed the last 2 km into Corte another spoke broke -
the usual place - rear wheel, cassette side. Corte
is a very interesting little city where, like Lézignan and
Montpellier, the bike shops are closed on Mondays. The
citadelle is perched on top of the town offering a great view
of the streets below, although it is dwarfed by the mountains above.
Corte is old by Corsican standards and the disarray of streets and
alleys, tiered one set above the other, has a medieval feel to it.
There's a university here and the young people give the town a lively
ambience. Nice dinner that evening. (50 km;
35°C/95°F)
Day
11:
We
set out early for breakfast so we could be at the bike shop when it
opened. The spoke was repaired by 8:45 and we set off, up first (of
course) then down and then a steep 2 km climb to the Col di San
Quilico. At the col we passed through a well lit tunnel and
emerged to a great view of the little village
of Soveria, perched on top of a hill with a large mountain behind
it. There was a lovely 9 km descent from the col on a wide
smooth road to the river Golo. We stopped in Ponte Vecchia for a
coffee then continued to follow the river downstream. There was a mix
of gentle ups and downs but the downs prevailed. Just outside of
Fontanone another spoke broke! You know where by now! We continued
carefully into Cracetta where we joined the route nationale
heading north to Bastia. About 6 km from Bastia, in heavy traffic,
ANOTHER spoke broke!!! We put the rear panniers on Carol's
bike and limped into Bastia, found our hotel, dumped our stuff and
headed out to a bike shop. The guy looked at the 2 broken spokes and
said "Ils ne sont pas de bonne qualité." (They're not good quality.) I had by now
figured that out for myself. I asked him if he could rebuild the
whole wheel by the next day at noon, since we had to get to our next
stop - everything having been booked in advance. He said he couldn't
but he would replace the two broken spokes and the four
remaining unbroken spokes on the inside/cassette side where the other
four original spokes had broken. The bike should be ready by 10:30
the next morning. Back to the hotel to launder/shower/change and then
out to find a restaurant for the evening. We had a look into one of
the three old churches in Bastia, the 17th c St. Jean-Baptiste with
its two fine towers. There were many restaurants ringing the port,
each one a clone of the one beside it. Carol likes to find what she
calls 'back alley' restaurants and in Bastia we happened upon a good
one: La Belle Époque
(10 rue Pino). The waiter was rhapsodic about
the food and the presentation and his island home. It turned out that
he, Charles André Rocchi, was the owner of the place. His
explanations of the various dishes were explosions of enthusiasm and
yet when each dish came he had not oversold them. This was by far the
best meal of the trip, heightened by his joie de vivre. The
wine he recommended was Corsican and, like all the Corscan wines we
tried, very good. (The cépages (types
of grape used) were unknown to me but the wines were a pleasant
surprise.) He treated us to a liqueur made from chestnuts at
the end of the meal. (Chestnuts - chataignes -
are a staple in Corsica. They even make flour from them since they
can grow no grain, given the mountainous topography of the
island.) It was a great food experience. One of the reasons we
come back to France nearly every year is because of the food. The
reason we do it on bikes is so that I can eat all this marvelous food
and drink the marvelous wines and yet still lose a few pounds - don't
tell my former science students that I said pounds!
(75 km; 32°C/90°F)
Day 12: We left the bags at the hotel and took the
opportunity to tour the citadelle and churches
of old Bastia while we waited for the bike repair. We went to the
shop at 9:45 and the bike was ready. Back to the hotel, picking up
lunch stuff en route, and away we went at 10:45. We had our first
real view of the Mediterranean coastline as we headed north up the
Cap Corse
(the little 'finger' of Corsica that sticks up on the
northeast corner of the island). The
water colour is really remarkable. In the shallows it is the same
aquamarine colour as the vinyl liners in swimming pools - but it's
REAL!! We had 40 km of gentle climbs and descents with the sea
always right there beside us. We lunched in Macinaggio and then
turned west, away from the sea, (because the road
north ends there), and began to climb steeply up over the Cap
Corse to the western shore. En route up to the Col de Saint Nicolas,
we passed by the village of Rogliano, perched on a mountainside with
seven big propeller blade wind turbines spinning slowly on top of the
mountain above the village.
When we reached the col we could see another wind farm atop
the next mountain with thirteen more large turbines slowly spinning
and generating 'free' electricity into the grid. It's good to see
that they are making use of the resources available. We descended
from the col to a belvedere from which we could see the
western coastline and the village where we would spend the night -
Centuri-Port, far below at the sea. From there we had a 6 km descent,
the last 4 on a narrow shaded winding road down to the sea and our
hotel in Centuri-Port, a small,
functioning fishing village with a couple of hotels and a half-dozen
restaurants ringing the port. Nice meal . This little village with
its tiny port filled with fishing boats was Carol's favorite stop in
Corsica. We watched a beautiful sunset over the port and had a nice
promenade after dark. This was a good day!
(59 km; 34°C/93°F)
Sunset across the Golfe de St. Florent
Day 13: We had breakfast at the hotel - something we
rarely do because they are so outrageously overpriced - because it
looked like we wouldn't find a place to eat for a while. We started
with the usual stiff climb on a narrow winding road, very pretty but
a tough 4½ km start to the day. The road levelled off briefly in
the village of Morsiglia where we joined the main coastal road but
then we began to climb again. On this western coast the mountains
come right to the edge of the sea, far below us here and beautiful in
the early morning sun. We stopped in Pino for a cool drink and a
water refill from the town spring. It had taken us 2 hours to travel
just 15 km. We were treated to a 10 km descent back down to the sea
at the Marine de Giottani. We saw a number of these coves with
beaches on both coasts of the Cap Corse but they were almost all
covered with dark pebbles instead of sand and there were rarely any
bathers there. I imagine that in the 36°C/97°F afternoon
sun the dark pebbly surface would fry eggs! Carol can't get over the
beautiful combination of green forested mountains, clear blue sky,
rocky shoreline and aquamarine sea
foaming white at the rocks. As we rode along we came upon a
monstrous derelict old factory rising high up the cliff from the
road's edge. Abandoned now for more than 40 years, it once housed a
mine which stripped the mountainside of the flat shale stones that
cover the roofs of buildings in the region. The ride had been a
series of climbs and descents, none as serious as the early morning's
15 km start. We stopped to have lunch in Nonza, a site
classé (i.e., identified by France as a heritage site). We
inspected the colorful little church and
Carol walked up the twisting medieval streets of the little village
to the tower - great view of village and sea.
(Meanwhile, I had une pression - a
draft beer - and watched the bikes, a routine I've become quite
expert at over the many years we've been coming to France.)
There were busloads of tourists there. The big tour buses are a
hazard to cyclists on these narrow winding mountain roads. We
continued our ups and downs until, hot and tired, we arrived in St.
Florent at the southern end of the Cap Corse. We did our daily
laundry/shower/change routine and then walked into town. We sat in a
park, eating sorbet citronne (lemon sherbet)
and watched a game of boules. They were very good - both the
sorbets and the boules players! We
ate supper facing the port, filled with pleasure craft ranging from
expensive to very expensive, and watched a beautiful sunset
over the gulf and mountains. We loved the Cap Corse!
(60 km; 36°C/97°F)