Originally written April 2007
(to view the pictures associated with this post, please go to
http://picasaweb.google.com/kjventrudo/CorsicaWalkingTrip)
When my wife, Nancy, and I tell people we just came back from a self-guided walking trip in Corsica, they inevitably ask two questions: first, and somewhat sheepishly, where exactly is Corsica; and second, what is a self-guided walking trip? (Skip to the next paragraph if you know the answer to the first question). Corsica is a Mediterranean island, a region of France, located west of Italy, southeast of France, and north of the island of Sardinia, with a population of 275,000 people. It looks like a mountain range thrust out of the sea, and its coastal terrain is so severe hilly that the island is basically free of the South Florida-esque wall to wall condos and hotels that characterize some of the more developed parts of the Mediterranean.
My answer to the second question is a bit more involved, because before planning this trip I also had never heard of a self guided walking trip. I was certainly aware of walking trips, being on the mailing lists of Backroads, Butterfield and Robinson and others of that ilk. Their beautiful catalogs and mailers arrive regularly and I am usually impressed by the thoughtfulness of the itineraries and the quality of the experiences they appear to deliver for their clients. My only problem with the concept of a walking tour is that it includes other people. I am sociable enough, but the prospect of having to walk or otherwise hang out for several days with a group of people that I might not like makes me queasy.
So I was intrigued when Nancy saw a blurb in the Sunday travel section on a self-guided trip on Corsica’s (supposedly) famous GR20 trail. Intrigued because we had never been to Corsica (although I did know where it was) and because I had no idea what a self-guided trip entailed. Some quick internet research showed that in a self-guided trip the outfitter arranges everything-- maps, route details, accommodations with breakfast and a multi-course dinner-- and you simply walk or hike on your own and at your own pace, typically from village to village or, in the more adventurous trips, from campsite to campsite. The outfitter also moves your baggage so all you have to carry is a day pack with your map, route information, foul weather gear, water and a picnic lunch. This feature was pretty appealing. I like to hike and all, but the idea of hiking from village to village in Europe with a full pack on my back was a non-starter.
With our daughter scheduled to be away during April on a foreign trip with her school, (we should all come back as our kids) Nancy and I decided to give this a try. We looked into the GR20 trip, but it wasn’t offered in April due to the likelihood of snow on this high altitude trail. Poking around the internet, I found the attractive and thorough website of Tour Aventure (http://www.tour-aventure.com/gb/), a company based in Corsica that offers guided and self guided active holidays in Corsica, Sardinia, the Pyrenees and Provence. Tour Aventure claims to organize such trips for all of the English, Canadian and American tour operators which send clients on Corsican holidays. Emails and phone calls with Sarah, the English-born representative of the firm, left us convinced of their competence so we signed on for their “Corsican Island Mystery” trip. I am still not sure what the Mystery is, but this trip promised the highest level of accommodations and meals. At 800 euros (or about $1,000 at $1.35/euro) per person for a week (which included an otherwise expensive 90-minute taxi ride to the airport at the end of the trip), we didn’t expect much luxury, and frankly we didn’t get it. What we did get was a week of beautiful trails through extraordinarily scenic countryside, clean sheets and a hot shower every night, and hearty and delicious meals. The blueprints of each day’s hike were easy to decipher and our baggage was always there at the end of the day. .
The trip began at Aventure’s headquarters in Ajaccio, the largest city in Corsica (population 55,000 and the capital of southern Corsica) and located on the island’s west coast. We flew in on a Sunday morning on a 90 minute flight from Paris (Ajaccio is served by regular air service from a number of European cities, including with frequent flights from Paris and Marseille, and by ferry from Nice, Marseille and certain Italian cities). Best known as the birthplace of Napoleon, Ajaccio (pronounced Uh- jah – see- oh) has a pleasant old central section around the port, with narrow winding streets containing a jumble of restaurants, shops, homes and apartments, surrounded by more modern neighborhoods with apartments and houses overlooking the sea. We spent the day eating wonderful mussels at one of the many seaside cafes in the old town, buying our picnic lunch for the next day at the street market near the ferry port, where there was a wide of array of fruits and vegetables, local cheeses and meats, and walking the old town and the coastal road. Perhaps we were just itching to start our walk the next day, but one afternoon in Ajaccio was enough for us.
picture: Ajaccio port with mountains in background
Late that afternoon, Sarah from Tour Aventure met us at our hotel, the two star Hotel Fesch. Although our room was dark and appointed in 1950’s motel style, the Fesch served a good breakfast of coffee juice, yogurt and pastry, had nice people behind the counter and was clean enough. Sarah reviewed our maps and directions for the week and made a point of telling us not to rely solely on the written directions or the marks on the trails, but to use our maps diligently. That proved to be good advice, as the written directions were rather clumsily translated from French documents. Although this wasn’t a big problem, it was surprising given Sarah apparent ownership of the firm and her having been born and raised in England.
Despite being very friendly, Sarah was reluctant to recommend a restaurant in Ajaccio for dinner, saying they were all too inconsistent (the first night’s dinner was the only one not included in our trip). We found her reticence a bit off-putting, but since we planned to eat anyway, we retraced our steps from earlier in the day and ended up on Rui de Rome, a street in the old section of town with a bunch of attractive looking casual restaurants. Based upon nothing in particular, we selected Chez Paulo. It turned out to be an inspired choice. Paulo is a locals’ place with very good food and friendly service (not fern bar “my name is Tim and I’ll be your server” gag-me friendly, but French efficient friendly). Nancy started with white asparagus in vinaigrette followed by a seafood pizza with very fresh and undoubtedly local seafood. I had the soupe de poisons, with all the trimmings: cheese, croutons and fresh cloves of garlic to shave on to them (I went quite a bit overboard with the shaving) and rouille (spicy, garlic mayonnaise), I followed this with some excellent grilled local lamb chops and a nothing special chocolate mousse. With a liter of the house wine, dinner for two came to 40 euros ($54) - a bargain.
We woke up Monday morning looking forward to starting our walking trip. We didn’t expect anything strenuous -Tour Aventure graded the trip as “moderate” which meant “you need to be used to walking and take regular exercise to enjoy this holiday.” Since Nancy and I are active 40 somethings living in Steamboat Springs, CO, an exercise-mad town in the mountains of Northwest Colorado, this seemed like a pretty low bar. Nonetheless, our daughter was merciless in mocking our “wimpy” trip (“You can’t carry your own things in a pack every day?”). As Bogart said in Casablanca, “We were misinformed.”
picture: La Scala Regina
We left Ajaccio on the morning train (comprised of two cars seemingly cast off from some other French railroad) which traveled on a single track at very low speed. The two-hour ride took us through the interior of the country to the town of Corte, where we were met by Etienne, who would be shuttling us to the trailhead and our bags to our lodging for the night. Like almost everyone on the island, Etienne was very nice and accommodating despite our total inability to speak French and his to speak English. We piled into his Land Rover Defender and drove to the beginning of what we assumed would be an easy walk. Only, it wasn’t a walk and it wasn’t easy. It was a challenging hike. Our nearly five hour trek on La Scala Santa Regina, a trail historically used by shepherds leading their herds in and out of the central Niolu valley, started straight uphill and continued that way for about two hours. We wound through a gorge, crossed rivers on ancient “genoise” bridges (from when the Italian city-state of Genoa controlled Corsica), and followed a balcony path along the cliffs that provided excellent views of the snow capped mountains surrounding us. . After the week’s first (of many) run-ins with animals--a herd of small skinny cattle with short horns which refused to move off the trail-- we passed through the small village of Corsica and collapsed trailside to eat our picnic lunch of delicious Corsican cheese, wild boar sausage, bread and fruit. After lunch, the trail flattened out for a while, until we entered a chestnut forest. Then it ran through some old and crumbling stone walls, got steep and very overgrown in spots, and was generally hard to navigate. As the trail leveled out, we were met by a large herd of sheep which, again, were not quick to let us pass. Luckily the weather was perfect- blue skies and 70 degrees- and remained so for the entire week.
picture: Genoise Bridge on La Scala Regina
Despite the surprising difficulty of the hike, it was a great first day on the trail. It was a strenuous but manageable workout, the countryside was spectacular and the solitude that cam from being the only people on the trail was invigorating. Besides the animals, our only mishap was at the very end of the day, when we missed the most direct path down from the top of a hill to our hotel. The path was clearly marked on the map but we simply couldn’t find it, so we spent an extra half hour or so walking on a windy country road until we arrived at Casa Balduina, our seven-room boarding house on the outskirts of the village of Calacuccia. The village is tiny, with a population of 300 (all of whom we saw in a funeral procession in town in the early evening). At the boarding house, we were greeted by a note from Jeanne, the owner, saying she would be back soon; she was at the funeral. When Jeanne arrived, we were pleased to discover that she spoke perfect English- she had spent three years in Oxford – and that she was happy to drive us to town (the idea of re-lacing our hiking boots seemed extremely unpleasant) to buy provisions for the next day’s hike at the sparsely stocked local food store.
Casa Balduina proved to be a pleasant surprise on a couple of fronts. First, despite a nondescript exterior, the place was charming. The common areas on the first floor (dining and living rooms) were tidy and comfortably furnished, while our small but comfortable bedroom was bright and freshly painted, with decent linens and a modern bathroom (the recently installed flat screen tv didn’t work yet). Second, dinner that night was spectacular. Before converting it to a boarding house, Jeanne had used the building for a stand-alone restaurant. But now she served only overnight guests. We had an amazing braised lamb dish using a lamb supplied by one of her employees. It was so good that even Nancy, who doesn’t really like lamb, ate it with gusto. Although we were so hungry and tired that anything probably would have tasted good, this truly was excellent- fall-off-the-bone tender, great herb seasoning and a wonderful stock and wine reduction sauce. The same employee also made some excellent aged sheep’s milk cheese, which we had before finishing with a nice fruit salad with red wine syrup. Not surprisingly after, dinner was followed by passing out.
Tuesday morning was chilly and somewhat breezy, and began with another short shuttle from Etienne up to a French foreign legion camp, where we would start what was planned as a 10 mile hike. We were supposed to walk a mile or so through a pine forest before crossing a road and rejoining the path that leads to a big statue of Jesus at the top of the Col de Vergio, a mountain pass that divides the north and south of Corsica, and the highest altitude (roughly 5000 feet) we would reach during our trip. However, just before we were supposed to cross a road that we somehow didn’t see or recognize on the map or read about in our guide despite it clearly being referenced, we followed what we assumed to be the trail markings and took a turn off the trail and ended up way out of our way. While the thickness of the pine forest limited our views and ultimately may have caused us to become disoriented, the ridiculous thing was that we never stopped to really look at the map and didn’t even know we were lost until we hit another road, which was at the base of a ski "station". (There are supposedly three such stations in Corsica, although they open only in snowy years, which this wasn’t) It took us back to the top of the Col de Vergio, the statue- the hair of which looked more like a helmet, making it look more like Darth Vader than Jesus- and the trail. In the end, we added about one hour to the hike, and felt very lucky that we weren’t really lost.
The path down from the top of the pass was steep and loose in parts and ran in and by a shallow stream pretty much the whole time, resulting in wet boots and some not very serious spills. We stopped for a great picnic lunch- again Corsican cheese and boar sausage- before resuming our hike. The highlights of the afternoon were crossing a very “precarious” (the outfitter’s very accurate word- not great footing and big gaps in surface) swing bridge over the river, and our daily animal encounter- this time with a group of pigs at the very end of the day.
picture: “Precarious” swinging bridge
We arrived at our hotel, the Aitone, in the very pretty little mountain town of Evisa (altitude 2500 feet) mid afternoon and were seemingly the only two people there. The hotel, a five minute walk above the center of town, spills down the side of a hill and has endless views across the valley and down to the sea. The rooms were functional- think 50’s motel again- dark but clean, with a decent bathroom with some standard toiletries (and a bidet!), and most importantly, a nice balcony facing across the valley. The hotels in Evisa are generally open between April and October and there were some day trippers around, but the town was very empty. We drank pastis and beer on the balcony of the local tavern while the locals played cards inside. Even in a town of just 900, one of the card players had a sister in Richmond and another had a wife from San Jose. The quiet vanished just before dinner when a busload of 35 German tourists came in for dinner and an evening stay. Although the view of the sunset from the dining room was delightful, dinner was decidedly mediocre (Nancy had trout and I joined the Germans in roast pork-- perhaps one of the pigs we saw that afternoon on the trail) but the house wine was quite good.
picture: View from Evisa
We woke Wednesday morning to find the German group long gone- can’t miss one minute on the bus! (I can’t imagine riding a bus in Corsica, given the relentlessly winding and guardrail-less mountain roads). Our itinerary called for two nights in Evisa, which didn’t really excite us given Tuesday night’s meal and the drabness of our room, but we didn’t have much choice. We set off on the proposed day hike, a 4.5 hour journey that started from the village and went down and across the face of a steep ridge, and finally across a river (on another “precarious” swing bridge) to the abandoned town of Tasso. Our directions didn’t tell us anything about Tasso or when it was abandoned, but the “why” was pretty obvious- putting a road into the little secluded valley where it sits seemed impossible. We looked around at the remains of homes, stables and a church, and then had our daily run in with animals- pigs today, apparently left to wander around and forage for themselves until they are butchered.
picture: Abandoned hamlet of Tasso
From Tasso, our directions told us to take an old path that the map marked only with a dotted line (as opposed to the bold marking of our other trails- we should have gotten the hint). The path was supposed to lead us to the village of Cristinacce, before returning us to Evisa, but it was overgrown, non- existent or just elusive (certainly a possibility given our proven map reading skills). Scarred from bushwhacking for 30 minutes or so, we used the alternative directions out to the main road, which wound up and back to Evisa, with great views of the countryside down to the sea.
After a late lunch in town, we spent the afternoon back at the hotel reading on the balcony. We were happy and pleasantly sore- the hikes had all been fun and strenuous but not over the top difficult. After three days alone on the trail, we were still enjoying great conversation and superb silence. The interior portion of Corsica that we had seen was rugged and beautiful, with friendly but unobtrusive people.
We went down to dinner that evening without excitement given our experience the night before. This time we were the only two in the dining room and the food was fabulous. After salad and a charcuterie plate, we moved on to a wild boar stew (I really like boar, especially when, like in this dish, it is braised until falling apart) for me and a steak for Nancy. Everything was well prepared, very tasty and nicely presented. What a turnaround. I suppose the kitchen just wasn’t equipped to handle such a large group so early in the season.
Thursday was yet another beautifully sunny day as we set off on the 10 mile walk from Evisa to Porto Marina, a small tourist town at the sea. Walking down out of Evisa, we turned onto the well-marked Spelunca Gorge trail, which took us quickly down a series of switchbacks through the gorge. We were effectively walking down one edge of a canyon. This was a great trail with incredibly dramatic views across and back up the gorge. When we got to the bottom, we crossed the river on the Pont de Zaglia, another genoise arched stone bridge. (Thank goodness, because I had had enough of the precarious swinging ones.). We then headed up through olive and citrus groves to what our directions called the “vibrant village of Ota”. It was a pretty well situated place, but I am not quite sure what is so vibrant about it. There were two restaurants that weren’t open yet and a small hotel surrounded by some homes. We love small towns off the beaten path, but this one didn’t seem to have much to offer so we kept on walking.
picture: Village of Ota from the Spelunca Gorge
The final descent was pretty much straight down to the sea to Porto- this was the only day we completed the hike in materially less time than estimated in the itinerary and then further down to Porto Marina. The Marina is where the river that creates the Spelunca Gorge empties into the sea, and the mountains rise almost claustrophobically on all sides of the small bay, leaving room for little more than a few nondescript hotels and some seaside restaurants. Our nondescript hotel was the Kalliste- it was all but empty and we had a small unexciting room, albeit one with a view of the sea. There appeared to be significantly nicer lodging available in the town, but the Kalliste is what we got. It was the most disappointing place we stayed in all week.
picture: Calanques of Piana
We left Ajaccio on the morning train (comprised of two cars seemingly cast off from some other French railroad) which traveled on a single track at very low speed. The two-hour ride took us through the interior of the country to the town of Corte, where we were met by Etienne, who would be shuttling us to the trailhead and our bags to our lodging for the night. Like almost everyone on the island, Etienne was very nice and accommodating despite our total inability to speak French and his to speak English. We piled into his Land Rover Defender and drove to the beginning of what we assumed would be an easy walk. Only, it wasn’t a walk and it wasn’t easy. It was a challenging hike. Our nearly five hour trek on La Scala Santa Regina, a trail historically used by shepherds leading their herds in and out of the central Niolu valley, started straight uphill and continued that way for about two hours. We wound through a gorge, crossed rivers on ancient “genoise” bridges (from when the Italian city-state of Genoa controlled Corsica), and followed a balcony path along the cliffs that provided excellent views of the snow capped mountains surrounding us. . After the week’s first (of many) run-ins with animals--a herd of small skinny cattle with short horns which refused to move off the trail-- we passed through the small village of Corsica and collapsed trailside to eat our picnic lunch of delicious Corsican cheese, wild boar sausage, bread and fruit. After lunch, the trail flattened out for a while, until we entered a chestnut forest. Then it ran through some old and crumbling stone walls, got steep and very overgrown in spots, and was generally hard to navigate. As the trail leveled out, we were met by a large herd of sheep which, again, were not quick to let us pass. Luckily the weather was perfect- blue skies and 70 degrees- and remained so for the entire week.
picture: Genoise Bridge on La Scala Regina
Despite the surprising difficulty of the hike, it was a great first day on the trail. It was a strenuous but manageable workout, the countryside was spectacular and the solitude that cam from being the only people on the trail was invigorating. Besides the animals, our only mishap was at the very end of the day, when we missed the most direct path down from the top of a hill to our hotel. The path was clearly marked on the map but we simply couldn’t find it, so we spent an extra half hour or so walking on a windy country road until we arrived at Casa Balduina, our seven-room boarding house on the outskirts of the village of Calacuccia. The village is tiny, with a population of 300 (all of whom we saw in a funeral procession in town in the early evening). At the boarding house, we were greeted by a note from Jeanne, the owner, saying she would be back soon; she was at the funeral. When Jeanne arrived, we were pleased to discover that she spoke perfect English- she had spent three years in Oxford – and that she was happy to drive us to town (the idea of re-lacing our hiking boots seemed extremely unpleasant) to buy provisions for the next day’s hike at the sparsely stocked local food store.
Casa Balduina proved to be a pleasant surprise on a couple of fronts. First, despite a nondescript exterior, the place was charming. The common areas on the first floor (dining and living rooms) were tidy and comfortably furnished, while our small but comfortable bedroom was bright and freshly painted, with decent linens and a modern bathroom (the recently installed flat screen tv didn’t work yet). Second, dinner that night was spectacular. Before converting it to a boarding house, Jeanne had used the building for a stand-alone restaurant. But now she served only overnight guests. We had an amazing braised lamb dish using a lamb supplied by one of her employees. It was so good that even Nancy, who doesn’t really like lamb, ate it with gusto. Although we were so hungry and tired that anything probably would have tasted good, this truly was excellent- fall-off-the-bone tender, great herb seasoning and a wonderful stock and wine reduction sauce. The same employee also made some excellent aged sheep’s milk cheese, which we had before finishing with a nice fruit salad with red wine syrup. Not surprisingly after, dinner was followed by passing out.
Tuesday morning was chilly and somewhat breezy, and began with another short shuttle from Etienne up to a French foreign legion camp, where we would start what was planned as a 10 mile hike. We were supposed to walk a mile or so through a pine forest before crossing a road and rejoining the path that leads to a big statue of Jesus at the top of the Col de Vergio, a mountain pass that divides the north and south of Corsica, and the highest altitude (roughly 5000 feet) we would reach during our trip. However, just before we were supposed to cross a road that we somehow didn’t see or recognize on the map or read about in our guide despite it clearly being referenced, we followed what we assumed to be the trail markings and took a turn off the trail and ended up way out of our way. While the thickness of the pine forest limited our views and ultimately may have caused us to become disoriented, the ridiculous thing was that we never stopped to really look at the map and didn’t even know we were lost until we hit another road, which was at the base of a ski "station". (There are supposedly three such stations in Corsica, although they open only in snowy years, which this wasn’t) It took us back to the top of the Col de Vergio, the statue- the hair of which looked more like a helmet, making it look more like Darth Vader than Jesus- and the trail. In the end, we added about one hour to the hike, and felt very lucky that we weren’t really lost.
The path down from the top of the pass was steep and loose in parts and ran in and by a shallow stream pretty much the whole time, resulting in wet boots and some not very serious spills. We stopped for a great picnic lunch- again Corsican cheese and boar sausage- before resuming our hike. The highlights of the afternoon were crossing a very “precarious” (the outfitter’s very accurate word- not great footing and big gaps in surface) swing bridge over the river, and our daily animal encounter- this time with a group of pigs at the very end of the day.
picture: “Precarious” swinging bridge
We arrived at our hotel, the Aitone, in the very pretty little mountain town of Evisa (altitude 2500 feet) mid afternoon and were seemingly the only two people there. The hotel, a five minute walk above the center of town, spills down the side of a hill and has endless views across the valley and down to the sea. The rooms were functional- think 50’s motel again- dark but clean, with a decent bathroom with some standard toiletries (and a bidet!), and most importantly, a nice balcony facing across the valley. The hotels in Evisa are generally open between April and October and there were some day trippers around, but the town was very empty. We drank pastis and beer on the balcony of the local tavern while the locals played cards inside. Even in a town of just 900, one of the card players had a sister in Richmond and another had a wife from San Jose. The quiet vanished just before dinner when a busload of 35 German tourists came in for dinner and an evening stay. Although the view of the sunset from the dining room was delightful, dinner was decidedly mediocre (Nancy had trout and I joined the Germans in roast pork-- perhaps one of the pigs we saw that afternoon on the trail) but the house wine was quite good.
picture: View from Evisa
We woke Wednesday morning to find the German group long gone- can’t miss one minute on the bus! (I can’t imagine riding a bus in Corsica, given the relentlessly winding and guardrail-less mountain roads). Our itinerary called for two nights in Evisa, which didn’t really excite us given Tuesday night’s meal and the drabness of our room, but we didn’t have much choice. We set off on the proposed day hike, a 4.5 hour journey that started from the village and went down and across the face of a steep ridge, and finally across a river (on another “precarious” swing bridge) to the abandoned town of Tasso. Our directions didn’t tell us anything about Tasso or when it was abandoned, but the “why” was pretty obvious- putting a road into the little secluded valley where it sits seemed impossible. We looked around at the remains of homes, stables and a church, and then had our daily run in with animals- pigs today, apparently left to wander around and forage for themselves until they are butchered.
picture: Abandoned hamlet of Tasso
From Tasso, our directions told us to take an old path that the map marked only with a dotted line (as opposed to the bold marking of our other trails- we should have gotten the hint). The path was supposed to lead us to the village of Cristinacce, before returning us to Evisa, but it was overgrown, non- existent or just elusive (certainly a possibility given our proven map reading skills). Scarred from bushwhacking for 30 minutes or so, we used the alternative directions out to the main road, which wound up and back to Evisa, with great views of the countryside down to the sea.
After a late lunch in town, we spent the afternoon back at the hotel reading on the balcony. We were happy and pleasantly sore- the hikes had all been fun and strenuous but not over the top difficult. After three days alone on the trail, we were still enjoying great conversation and superb silence. The interior portion of Corsica that we had seen was rugged and beautiful, with friendly but unobtrusive people.
We went down to dinner that evening without excitement given our experience the night before. This time we were the only two in the dining room and the food was fabulous. After salad and a charcuterie plate, we moved on to a wild boar stew (I really like boar, especially when, like in this dish, it is braised until falling apart) for me and a steak for Nancy. Everything was well prepared, very tasty and nicely presented. What a turnaround. I suppose the kitchen just wasn’t equipped to handle such a large group so early in the season.
Thursday was yet another beautifully sunny day as we set off on the 10 mile walk from Evisa to Porto Marina, a small tourist town at the sea. Walking down out of Evisa, we turned onto the well-marked Spelunca Gorge trail, which took us quickly down a series of switchbacks through the gorge. We were effectively walking down one edge of a canyon. This was a great trail with incredibly dramatic views across and back up the gorge. When we got to the bottom, we crossed the river on the Pont de Zaglia, another genoise arched stone bridge. (Thank goodness, because I had had enough of the precarious swinging ones.). We then headed up through olive and citrus groves to what our directions called the “vibrant village of Ota”. It was a pretty well situated place, but I am not quite sure what is so vibrant about it. There were two restaurants that weren’t open yet and a small hotel surrounded by some homes. We love small towns off the beaten path, but this one didn’t seem to have much to offer so we kept on walking.
picture: Village of Ota from the Spelunca Gorge
The final descent was pretty much straight down to the sea to Porto- this was the only day we completed the hike in materially less time than estimated in the itinerary and then further down to Porto Marina. The Marina is where the river that creates the Spelunca Gorge empties into the sea, and the mountains rise almost claustrophobically on all sides of the small bay, leaving room for little more than a few nondescript hotels and some seaside restaurants. Our nondescript hotel was the Kalliste- it was all but empty and we had a small unexciting room, albeit one with a view of the sea. There appeared to be significantly nicer lodging available in the town, but the Kalliste is what we got. It was the most disappointing place we stayed in all week.
picture: Calanques of Piana
After a late seafood pizza lunch at an outdoor restaurant on the rocks of the bay, , we took a sunset boat tour (with narration in French) to the wildly dramatic Calanques of Piana, the red granite cliffs to the south of Porto that plunge over 500 meters into the sea. They reminded me of the Na Pali Coast in Kauai crossed with the arch at Lands End in Cabo. Nancy thought this to be a silly comparison.
picture: Sunset in Porto Marina
Since the Kalliste does not have a restaurant, we were sent for dinner to the Belvedere (?) restaurant in Porto. Again, the service was friendly and efficient and the food was fine (especially the soupe de Poisson- I was much more careful with the garlic), but it was nothing special. We left Porto Marina Friday morning for our last day of hiking, which started with a walk across the beach and then continued straight up the hill for 3.5 hours to the village of Piana. Despite being quite steep in parts, it was a wonderful hike- probably the most dramatic of the entire week. There were great views of the sea and magnificent balcony paths along the cliffs we had seen from the boat the night before.
picture: Les Roches Rouges, Piana
Just before we entered the center of Piana we came to our lodging for the night, Les Roches Rouges, “the red rocks”. This is a lovely old hotel- built in the 1920’s- with stunning views of the Mediterranean. Tour Aventure told us that we would not have a sea-view room, although if given the option we would have happily paid more (we made it clear from the outset that we were looking for the best accommodations available at each place, so this omission was surprising). Luckily, the hotel was almost empty and the owner put us in a room with a view without us having to ask.
picture: Piana (www.sipiana.com)
After checking in to our room, which had an amazing view of the sea and the mountains from the small balcony, as well as a modern bathroom (although I’m not sure if the bedroom had been touched since the hotel was built), we headed to town for lunch. Many web sites refer to Piana as being “one of the loveliest villages in France.” I am not sure of the source of this, but it is a beautiful place with narrow streets, pretty white homes with tile roofs and a smattering of restaurants, all set on top of the cliffs overlooking the sea.
After pizza and salad in an outdoor cafe, we walked through the village. With it being off-season, everything was pretty quiet. There were very few shops of any interest (except for one that sold local cheeses and boar sausage that I didn’t think would get past US Customs) so we headed back to the hotel, tired but exhilarated from our week of hiking. Our late afternoon was well spent with a drink and some reading on the hotel deck.
Dinner at Les Roches Rouges was wonderful, despite another questionable call by our outfitter. Earlier in the day we had reviewed the daily dinner menu posted outside the dining room, which also looked out over the sea, and the ingredients and preparations sounded wonderful. However, when we sat down we were told that, as Tour Aventure clients, we were having something far less interesting. The dining room manager was very friendly and we asked if it was possible to pay an upcharge to eat from the regular menu. They were happy to accommodate us and only charged us 10 euros each. It was money well spent as Nancy started with a wonderful salad with seafood while I had a trio of foie gras preparations, all of which were excellent. We both followed up with local fresh fish- simply grilled with a lovely sauce and vegetables- and dessert, all accompanied by the best Corsican wines we had all week. All in all, a beautiful place to spend our last afternoon and evening in Corsica.
Although the nausea-inducing 90-minute taxi ride from Piana back to the Ajaccio airport took our minds off of our lovely last evening, we enjoyed our week immensely. We will likely visit Corsica again- a boat trip around the island, more time in Evisa and Piana and possible trips to some of the areas we didn’t see (the old coastal town of Bonifacio seems particularly interesting) - hopefully with our children. The verdict on self-guided walking trips is much clearer- we are already researching possible trips for next spring. We will do things differently- we will make sure that we are getting what we want in terms of accommodations and meals, and we certainly will pay more attention to our maps. But this kind of vacation is a very peaceful way to be in a place and not just pass through it. And with all the hiking, you won’t feel guilty eating well at day’s end.
