It’s always a little busy the day you pick up a rental car. Particularly when you have to travel to the local airport to find it. This time things actually went pretty well. We managed to find the small cafe where they had great tea and our first cornetto, chocolato to be precise! Yum, fresh as always.😋 From there it was a fairly short walk to the bus stop where we could pickup either the #2 or #10 bus. The 10 came first and took us along it’s standard route eventually dropping us at the airport. We found huge lines in the car rental building, but it was with significant relief that we found the Hertz desk completely clear. Phew! We quickly dealt with the paperwork and we’re on our way to locate our car amongst the hundreds waiting. We eventually found parking spot 144 only to discover that the car occupying it was kind of square!
I began regretting not having taken the sporty upgrade we were offered. We sort of checked the car over and discovered that it was a Fiat Panda. That explained the shape, lol! Turned out it was a hybrid so we decided to stick with the bear😏.
Our drive to the small town of Dorgali was something over an hour, and we agreed to take the snail road along the Med. Longer, but perhaps more to see than on the main highway. In fact it was the right decision. We soon pulled off the road we were following and found our way down towards the water. A parking spot opened up so we decided to go for a walk to see what we could find.
We soon found what we were looking for.
A little bit of heaven. We took our time and just drank it all in.
There were only a couple of people around.
However, we had to keep moving south, so we walked back to Bear and continued on. We did stop wherever it made sense.
In the town of Budoni we found a Sunday morning market. Always enjoy a market, so we parked Bear and found our way into the thick of things. Annemarie decided to check out the alcohol table.
It was a quite long market with lots of stalls and visitors. Many locals and of course more than a few imports like ourselves.
Once again there was a honey table! Some of the honey had very unusual tastes and it was again unfortunate that I wasn’t able to acquire any to take home. The memories will have to do!
While in the market we sat outside in the shade at Mary’s Bar and enjoyed a couple of cold drinks. The temperature was passing through 28° and we were doing our best to keep hydrated. People watching is a sport all to itself and is best enjoyed from the safety of a shaded bar.😎 We’ve observed lots more German and English speaking people here (vacationers). Sardinia is definitely on their radar. Not so much Corsica.
Speaking of which, I noticed Annemarie posted on FB some of our Corsican reflections that we discussed over dinner last night. This is something we usually do after visiting someplace new. I was going to post my own observations, but I have obtained permission to copy Annemarie’s post and add my own thoughts (in bold).
Bonifaccio was certainly our favourite place, but our accommodation there was our least favourite. Agree with both. The comparatively inexpensive accommodation was noisy and dampish, but well located. Honourable mention goes to Bastia with its edgy feel and wonderful setting.
We had a lot of nice meals Agreed, but overall, I found the food disappointing we have different food tastes. I was generally more pleased with most of my selections, but then I’m the guy who will eat cold ravioli out of a jar for breakfast when on long walks!😂. I think I was hoping for more French cuisine, but it was more Italian influenced expected this. Also it was quite expensive, which may have influenced my choices (didn’t sample many of the higher end options) agree, much more expensive.
Also, vegetables didn’t seem to have much of a presence again, we have different tastes and I had a number of tasty salads and some great potatoes. Veggies are often ordered separately on menus but that increases the meal cost considerably. We supplemented with lunch salads and fruit from the grocery stores.
I did enjoy some good gelato, though. Me too!😋
Corsica, understandably is has a strong Italian influence. French is certainly the dominant language (not a lot of English speaking tourists that we could overhear), agree. For that matter we heard almost no German, Dutch, Spanish or English spoken. We were also interested to see that there were often dual signs with the Corsican language spelled out. It’s definitely in use.
and baguettes and croissants are core foods, but beyond that pizza and pasta are predominant. I would add that this was more common in the price ranges we were looking at. Lots of meat was available if willing to pay for it. I had fish from time to time and really enjoyed it! I was disappointed with most of the local wines we were given, but then we weren’t spending €50 for bottles at dinner! The local beer was awesome!
The scenery is really beyond compare, from our Oceanside walks to the crazy mountain drives and the amazing Oceanside cliffs, it was all breathtaking. I completely agree! It was quite spectacular and there wasn’t any place that I didn’t enjoy.
I might also add that the villages were great places to visit, we really enjoyed our hike on Cap Corse, the train ride (particularly the first half) was certainly worth the time, the locals were nice to interact with and almost everyone took great care on some challenging roads. I can’t believe that we didn’t see a single accident. Our car was returned exactly as we found it. 😅 We both also enjoyed brushing up on our French and most locals were pretty patient with us and I think appreciative of our efforts.
For any of you considering adding Corsica to your list of places to visit, we highly recommend it. I couldn’t agree more, but bring your wallets! We will likely not return, but so pleased we went for a visit. It far exceeded expectations!
This is our place, a typical Italian accommodation with lots of room and loads of tiles. Annemarie found it a couple of days ago and we will be based here for 3 nights. There’s lots to do in the area and we are just about to have a planning session. Not much around to do on a Sunday so we have spent the afternoon on domestic chores. Laundry all hung!
Cheers from Sardinia!
Geoff 🍷
Distance Walker - Wandering & Wondering! 