What we found out over the duration (couldn’t bring myself to use the word course) of the next 3 weeks is that there is absolutely nothing smooth or benign about Corsica. In fact, the word that comes to mind every time I think of the place is spiky. Spiky trees from some ancient age when dinosaurs roamed free, spiky rock that is simultaneously visually appealing as it is physically damaging to one’s sensitive journalistic hands, and spiky people who you’ll either admire or despise and a lot of that will be down to whether or not you’re French. Yup, there’s no messing about with the Corsicans and their reputation for liking a good fight is there for all to see; practically every roadsign on the island is either riddled with bullet holes or emblazoned with nationalist graffiti and more often than not, both. As I’m not French I found this rather wild and rebellious outlook kind of exciting but then again, I’ve always liked a good bandit. I’m not sure there are many places in the world where the soundtrack to your attempt to onsight a 6B is the constant baying of eager hunting dogs in pursuit of some poor snuffling wild boar. I say poor but clearly I’m no Linda McCartney as most nights I could be found eagerly devouring yet another portion of terrine de sanglier in the many not so varied establishments frequented during our Corsican jaunt. Once you’ve seen 21 Corsican restaurants, you’ve seen them all…..or something like that.
After the spikyness, the thing that struck me next about Corsica was that it seems to be a land of constant contrast. As this is essentially a complete oxymoron (I’ve been waiting years to use that word in something other than an A-Level English Essay) it would seem appropriate to take the time to explain this more clearly. Well the contrasts are obvious. It is a land of wildly fluctuating landscapes. It is well documented and absolutely true that within an hour you can be on a white sandy beach reminiscent of the Cape Town coast or high up amongst snow covered peaks that would challenge the most hardened of Alpinists. You can surf the Brazilian-like waters around Les Iles Sanguinaires, hike the infamous and challenging GR20, go deep sea fishing from the historic town of Porto Vecchio, dangle 180m above the ground on a Tyrolean traverse in the Asco valley, sport climb in the sun on the legendary Corsican taffoni, go caving and canyoneering almost everywhere, do long multipitch routes in a stunning Alpine landscape, you can even ski…and so it goes on. It is exactly this kind of variation that makes Corsica one awesome adventure travel destination as basically you get several holidays in one and in the current economic climate, that’s got to be a good thing.
1. As alluded to earlier; The Restaurant Menu
So predictable is the appearance of every type of meat prepared in every possible way on the menu of every traditional Corsican eatery that after 3 weeks of relentless restaurant exposure even Captain Caveman would likely be found desperately seeking a vegetable or some source of Omega 3. Should Cavie indeed decide that a diet based entirely on sausage, ham, beef, boar, veal or game become a little too much and head for a fish restaurant in the coastal town of Calvi, I would at this point urge him to get out his iPhone and use its calculator to work out the cost per gram of his St Jacques fishy. We clearly did not and ended up dropping 144 euros on the ugliest, googly eyed fish I’ve ever seen. Such was man friend’s demeanour that I don’t even think a night out with Billy Connolly, a free pass to enjoy the Playboy Mansion for a week, and a lifetime of guaranteed sunshine and powder would have helped raise the mood.
2. Motoring Madness
Whether we were on the twistiest of single track mountain roads in a hailstorm with zero visibility or cruising along the gently meandering coastal roads in glorious sunshine trying desperately to look all fashion and Italian, the Corsican’s driving behaviour remained utterly consistent: quite frankly they are lunatics behind the wheel. And behind the wheels of the most amazing looking vehicles I’ve ever seen; part jeep, part monster truck, part tractor. Colour? Come on, this is spiky bandit land - camouflage of course. As traditionally I believe the goal of camouflage was to divert attention away from yourself, quite why they insist spraying their road monsters green, beige and brown continues to escapes me because my god, you certainly can’t miss ‘em. So while petrol heads across the globe had their eyes firmly fixed on the exciting conclusion to the 2010 F1 season, we were living out our very own version of the Whacky Races. Amusing? Yes. Terrifying? Totally. I blame the fact we had a French number plate and on reflection taking that into consideration, I’m surprised we’re even alive and have not been made into some god awful terrine.
The key here is the NO in November. By travelling in November we knew we were heading to the island in the offseason and it was in fact our intention to find out what Corsica could offer the travelling adventurer outside the peak tourist period. Whilst things hadn’t reached tumbleweed blowing in the wind proportions quite yet, the overwhelming feeling was definitely one of being chased out of your favourite pub at last orders when you’ve just ordered a round and finally got yourself a seat by the fire. Understandably pretty much anything linked to the GR20 was closed and by that I mean practically every hotel, café and restaurant within 10 miles of the famous trekking trail. Such was the regularity of this that stumbling upon an open hostelry often provoked way out of proportion and quite shameful reactions of excitement, as was the case high up in the magnificent Col de Bavella. For an hour we had stood in silence, gazing open mouthed in awe as the most incredible sunset illuminated a mountain range that can truly rival Patagonia and Chamonix in the spectacular stakes. But when we noticed there was a café open – we were off. Bieres: 1, Natural Wonders of the World: 0. But even if you were lucky to stumble upon somewhere that was open, even then you were not yet home and dry. Very often it would appear that the most intriguing of produce would have been dropped from the Corsican cafés’ November menu as harshly as Capello tends to drop the lovely Becks. I won’t go into too much detail but all I’ll say is that for me the rejection and negativity linked with the word ‘Panini’ means it may be a long time before I can set foot in Costa Coffee, or Italy for that matter. If we weren’t quite getting the message that perhaps the Corsicans were more than ready to shut up shop and piss off to do whatever they do in the winter (which if it was me would be to sit very still and drink all of their quite frankly amazing wine), it definitely reached us on the last night of our trip. Our Bastian Hotel had a rather appropriate neon light breakdown meaning that only the letter L of ‘Hotel’ was illuminated on the outside of the building. It should have come as no surprise then that at 4 am in Hotel Hell we were awoken to the sound of 3 gunshots in quick succession, and then rather eerily one more 2 minutes later. Yikes, time to go home!
Funnily enough as our approach to the trip was one of ‘let’s go see’, our Corsican jaunt ended up being a far bigger adventure in many ways than my Nepalese undertaking panned out to be. It was at the same time unpredictable and frustrating as it was hilarious and illuminating. If you believe that adventure can be defined as a journey with an uncertain outcome and if this is what you are looking for, then I would strongly suggest getting over there before it becomes too overcrowded, predictable and mainstream (see: Everest Base Camp).
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