We swapped the sea for the land today and hired a car for an exploration of the southern part of the island. On the way to pick up the car we stopped to look at the weather forecast at the capitainerie and saw that tomorrow they were giving mer belle. Now that was just what had been waiting for. Sometimes they say mer peu agitee. Now it is possible to ask how agitee is peu, but with mer belle there is no question. So we resolved that we would be setting off for Italy tomorrow whatever.
Meanwhile we had a lovely tour in the car with a picnic lunch of chicken sandwiches and were surprised by how green the island is. On the eastern side with pines mostly but on the western side it is almost rainforest in its greenery not at all what one would expect this far south in the Mediterrranean. It must be because of the high mountains attracting rain. And rain we experienced because half way through the day it started. There was spectacular scenery but another surprise was the amount of wild flowers everywhere. Corsican hellebores in abundance, roses, cistus, verbascums, scabious pink and blue, and many others we could not put a name to. The roads were all bends which reminded us of the railway line between Brisbane and Coff’s Harbour in NSW Australia. High up in the mountains it is all bends and when we were on the train we decided that when they were making the track they ran out of straight bits and it was too far to send for some more so they put all the curved bits together to complete the line.
Our tour started at the bottom of this map. We went to the coast on the right then over the mountains to the coast on the left and then back to where we started
This was a place called Zonza in the mountains - very alpine in character
The villages were perched on the hillsides
When we returned to the boat it was raining heavily and we went on board and got a fug up. This is an old family boating term most appropriately used on an English summer sailing holiday when you get on board, close all doors windows and hatches, crack up all the heating possible and sit there with the windows all steamed up. It is not normally something that you would associate with a Mediterranean sailing holiday but we did it!
We mused to ourselves that earlier this year we had considered having air conditioning fitted on the boat but had baulked at the cost so we congratulated ourselves on our amazing foresight.
A fug up
Avocado prawn, steak and melon then scrabble – Ann won. Early night ready for early start tomorrow.
Showing our route at the half way stage