Bicycle Camping on Corsica

We did find that the last two weeks in September were just a bit late in the season for camping. Some campgrounds had closed and a couple of nights we had to stay in hotels. Campgrounds generally cost between $10 and $15 per night and two star hotels were around $60. We would save a half loaf of bread each afternoon for our breakfast. We would usually spread this with brie or cream cheese and boil some water for tea. We generally made it onto the road by 9:00 to 9:30 in the morning. We would ride to the first village and stop for supplies. First we’d get a fresh loaf of bread, our favorite was "pain complet", whole wheat bread or "pain cereale", a multi grain bread. The fresh fruits in the region were fantastic. Pears, peaches and nectarines were large, luscious and tree ripe. We found a variety of things to spread on the bread including paté de foie, made from pork, Nutella, a chocolate and hazel nut spread and of course a full range of "fromages" including every variety of brie we could find, cream cheese, goat cheese and one they called fromage blanc that was the consistency of yogurt.  Next we would find a shady tree or a park bench and sit and eat a second breakfast. We never carried more than one meal with us plus snacks to eat along the way. We would shop for food two or three times a day. The only day that was a problem was Sunday. We alternated between restaurant meals and opening cans. We could buy enough groceries to fix a hearty supper for about $10. A restaurant meal ranged from 85 to 125 FF per person plus another 20 to 25 FF for bottled water. The exchange rate was a little over 5 to 1 so we spent between $40 and $50 in restaurants. Bottled water is very popular in Europe. We found that most stores had a separate room stacked with palleted six packs of 1.5 liter bottles. We generally paid $.50 to $1.00 for a 1.5 liter bottle of water there. In a restaurant the price jumped to $3.00 to $5.00. A carafe of house wine cost about the same. Our worst buy was $12 for a liter and a half of water at a bar on a long dry stretch of mountains. We will probably take a pump type water purifier on our next trip. The weight penalty would be no more than the extra bottle of water we started carrying every day.

Our language skills at best were rudimentary. In larger cities that catered to tourists we often found someone who could match our little French with a little English. In small villages we usually could make do with one-word sentences, some finger pointing and usually each shop keeper had a handy calculator to show us the price if we were slow to make sense of the spoken numbers. Most of the larger villages had a Tourist Bureau. The staff was always a great help finding banks and campgrounds. We could count on them to have fliers telling about their local museums and art galleries. What we couldn’t count on was finding any of these places open. Most places close up between noon and three in the afternoon. This includes the Tourist Bureau. Some of the museums we would have liked to see were only open one or two days a week at this time of year. Some of these didn’t bother to change their gate signs and we would wait in vain for them to return at three.

In the campgrounds we generally had the pick of perhaps a hundred sites. Many of the campgrounds surrounded each site with neatly manicured hedges. The "Sanataries" as the restrooms are called are all in one building near the center of the camp. These featured long rows of toilet stalls, washbasin stalls and shower stalls. Oftentimes they were unisex, find an empty one and use it. The hot water was at best tepid, and at worst cold. None of the campgrounds feature American style picnic tables. Campers all bring their own fold up tables… well except for the bicyclists, they eat on the ground. The Eastern side of Corsica is relatively flat and easy to ride. We rode in the shadow of the central mountain ridge and were awestruck by the small villages perched on the various promontories. Some evenings after we had camp set up Purple would take us up into the hills without the usual baggage load to visit villages in the foothills.  He felt like a young gazelle on these rides. We never made it to one of the mountain top villages, however. We would climb until dusk started to overtake us then we would turn tail and fly back to camp. To make sure Purple didn’t loose his way in the waning light we carried a GPS and took a fix at the camp before leaving. After a week of riding we reached the Southern tip of Corsica at Bonifacio. At this point we put our Corsican vacation on hold and took the ferry across the 10 kilometer gap between Corsica and Sardinia. It was a total break in the routine. We took the train South to Cagliari and visited the family of an exchange student that had lived with us in 1988. When we returned from Sardinia we rode the much more rugged Western side of Corsica. Each day we peddled Purple to the top of one hill after another. These were between 90 and 500 meters high and most times we returned nearly to sea level to cross a stream before starting up the next one. Occasionally we would find a grade in the 10% range and had to resort to pushing Purple up the hill. Most of the time we just hunkered down in our 20 inch granny gear and slogged along at six kilometers per hour. The busier main highways went more inland. Although they rose to higher elevations their grades were more moderate, six to seven percent. Still the beauty of the island for us was the view of the green hills plunging into the blue Mediterranean. Besides on the coastal roads we saw perhaps a dozen cars an hour. All of the roads were paved. If you love to climb, this is heaven.

We still had one day of vacation left when we reached Ajaccio for our ferry back to Nice. We stayed in a Hotel called the Kallyesté. We saw some of the city that afternoon. Our ferry didn’t leave until five the next afternoon so we planned a more far-reaching tour for the next morning. Hotel owner Paul Battesti  agreed to keep our luggage secure in his back room for us. We left it all for we were anticipating some mountain biking. We rode to the top of Mte St Celelel on a dirt road and then on through a valley paralleling the ocean front route. We danced merrily through the saddle between two hills and out to the Mediterranean again and started toward the tourist resort village at the end of the point defining the Northern end of the Gulf of Ajaccio. Suddenly Purple staggered and nearly threw us off! I reigned him in and we stopped to look at what had caused him to come up lame. It had something to do with a small piece of metal in the tube of his front tire. No, not an extra piece impaled in the tube. It was the small tubular piece of metal by which you inflate the tube. It was not in the tube as it should be. Now the folly of our frolic came to light. It was eight kilometers back to the hotel where our spare tubes were buried deep in the luggage we had gleefully left behind. Yes, we rounded out our trip with a five mile hike half carrying  poor Purple. Then, as though as to increase the sympathy value of our plight the weather deteriorated and it started to rain. Sympathetic cyclists stopped and tried to help us. Contrary to our beliefs 700 mm tires are not as common as we expected. Everyone was riding mountain bikes. Even our hotel owner has them to rent. To bring this soggy saga to a close, we did make it back with plenty of time to replace the torpid tube. We bid Paul au revoir, glided down to the ferry dock walked to the head of a long line of cars and straight onto the ferry. We then set back and enjoyed a grand view of the coastline we had so recently walked along. It was full dark when we landed. Nice was suprisingly  quiet because it was a Sunday evening. We retraced our route to the Ibis and finished off our day with hot showers and a good night’s sleep.

Would we do it again? In a minute! The scenery is spectacular, the people are friendly and the drivers are considerate and give you plenty of room. It certainly helps to have some language skills, but you do not need to be fluent in French to get along. The big difference between unsupported touring and going with a group is that you become totally immersed in the culture of the host country. There is no guide to insolate you from the culture shock and negotiate for you. For example I asked for "the bill" at a restaurant and got "une bier." We finally learned to ask for "l’addition."

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