Golfe de Porto

We are now at the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Gulf of Porto, comprising the Calanche of Piana, Gulf of Girolata and the Scandola Reserve. The mountains really do meet the sea here as this photo taken from the campsite swimming pool shows. These lumps are just over 1000m, rising straight from the sea but are just the apéritif when it comes to Corsican highlands.

The campsite Sole e Vista is on a steep hillside, entirely terraced, with great shady plots for the variety of visitors and an amazing pool near the top of the site.

We explored the coastline on the south side of the gulf between Porto and Piana. This was to view Les Calanques de Piana, a fantastic area of rock formations and sculptured, cliffs, rising 300m above the sea.  They are pink, ochre and ginger, colours that are emphasised in the strong sunlight. There is a convenient road snaking through them, with just room to pass and with a number of places to stop and look.

Access to these views was by walking a moderate track with plenty of steps for about thirty minutes, from a small parking area on the coast road. It's a reasonable workout, given the temperature.

Shamefully, as is the case throughout France, wherever you walk or stop, there's always evidence of toilet activities, even in a UNESCO site.

At Piana we took a very twisty and steep road down the hillside to the tiny bay below.

There is parking for several cars, access is tarmac all the way down but for a Land Rover Defender 110 with little turning ability, some of the hairpins needed a couple of goes! It's really handy to have a spotter in the jump seat who can warn of on-coming traffic whilst performing these manoeuvres.

After a ten minute walk from Le Parking (free of course, this isn't the UK), you arrive at this beach, easily the best so far. The water is crystal clear and quite deep so it is very clean. The sand is deep, soft and very hot and only a few people get this far from the main drag.

Calvi and the approach to Porto

With the warm-up in full swing, we knew that shade and water (to drink and in which to be immersed), were now necessities. We skirted the Desert des Agriates to the north of us as the temperature and humidity were a good reason not to go to the famous beach Plage de Saleccia. This would have required a sixty minute off road excursion on a track that we couldn't get up-to-date details about, to reach the campsite at the beach end.

Instead we continued on tarmac, reaching the coast and enjoying the beautiful scenery and smells until we arrived at the chic town and marina of Calvi.

There one can watch the yachting and boating world go by. The campsite we chose, Camping Les Castors, is just a few minutes walk from the huge beach, which itself is next to the marina and the massive Citadel is prominent too.

We found some shade for both us and the Landy, in fact a little too much shade, as the battery that supplies the fridge began to complain, dropping to 11.6V a few times. This was due to reduced input from the "shaded for too much of the day" 100W solar panel, whilst the fridge was working flat out 24/7 in order to keep the interior at around 4 deg C. It does this very well.

This is an idea of the temperatures we are experiencing, with the left side temperature on the display showing the interior of the vehicle and the right showing exterior shade temperature. The latter is a little affected by radiation from the chassis and so when the Landy isn't moving it can read a little high - but it isn't far off. So we are getting used to temperatures in mid thirties and wow is that hot. With a strong sun, the temperature rises very quickly so that it is over thirty degrees from mid-morning right through until the evening. There's no respite and the coolest places to be are supermarkets but otherwise, with no aircon, it is shade and a breeze, in that order or total immersion in water.

Calvi is set in front of a spectacular range of mountains, still showing some snow on these north facing flanks. The peaks are dramatic, looking like the Dolomites, formed by vertical rock faces like huge incisors. The photo doesn't do them justice.

Lord Nelson lost his eye here in 1794 and left never wanting to see the place again.

Visiting the Citadel required an early start due to the heat but we managed to walk there, back and around before the heat of the day would drive us to the campsite pool.

We had a great view down to the dock where Titania, a 73m custom motor yacht was coming into port. There was a large crew on deck ready to berth her and we were excited to see if anyone we recognised was on board, as it is a British ship flying the Red Ensign.

As we watched and waited, a quick Google gave us more facts and surprisingly, as it is a charter vessel, the indicative cost to hire for a week. Rather fortunately given the weather, it is still low season, so costs are €525,000 for the week plus expenses of about €71,000. Rather unsurprisingly one-one we know did appear on the gangplank.

Returning to the campsite, we toughed it out at the pool. This is beautifully situated and has very comfortable sun loungers. (I'm not responsible for the feet in the photo). Whilst not being a "swimmer's" pool", one can still have great fun.

Driving along the coast from Calvi to Porto was spectacular. For the main part, the road really was clinging to precipitous cliffs and the sea was often several hundred metres below.

A short detour to a village at the seafront was rewarded with a really cool café and another great view.

Plus another guest came past wearing a Land Rover T-shirt and soon we were back on teh road comparing notes, him with a nice TD5 110 fitted out for sleeping. These discussions are doing wonders for my French language ability too.

Finally the road swings east and as you drive around the corner, the whole of the Golfe de Porto opens-up. This view is looking back north across the gulf to the road where we drove from left to right as we approached Porto. In the grand scheme of things, we are now in a relatively remote part of the island and it is beautiful.

Cap Corse

We are using an app - park4night which is very handy as it uses the reviews and knowledge of previous "campers" to provide locations and facilities of various camping spots. These range from unofficial spaces at the side of the road or maybe a lay-by, to fully fledged campsites. There's the quick access to "what's near me now?" and this provides easy directions for a "drive there".

So we found references to a spot at the tip of Cap Corse, described as two locations, upper and lower. The drive there, although all tarmac, entailed a turn off the already minor (narrow, twisty and hilly) road onto another that terminates at a military radar place a km or so past the camp spot. We parked next to a French camper and went to the small beach, a 600m walk down and there we swam off the rocks. It was absolute bliss.

Back at the top the French had left and for the next eighteen hours we saw one other couple who came for a swim and a couple of cars the next morning that drove past on the road above, going to the military place.

It is exposed and the reviews said so but somehow when the temperature is in the twenties, that doesn't matter much. It was a little disconcerting as the wind was very gusty, so during the night there would be periods of calm and then we'd get a real buffeting. The Landy rocks around on its springs and as we are sleeping at the roof line, there is some motion.

We carry 40 litres of water and have our little loo too, so hygiene standards at a site such as this are maintained.

The views were amazing as we watched shipping sail by, down the east side of the island towards Bastia.

We were very happy to wake the following morning to more of the same weather and the solitude. After breakfast we continued our tour of the Cap with a drive along the west coast on a road that is very popular with Italian motorcycle tourers and also a few coaches. This required patient driving and passing wasn't possible unless the coach drivers decided to be nice and pull-in, which in our case they did.

Unlike many, we took the side-roads so we could get back down to the coast and there we found places such as this, perfect for a coffee.

At one spot along the route we parked behind a 110 from Luxembourg. There was a fair bit of bling on there but all in all it looked like a great Landy. It's much newer than ours, a Puma, with big seats and aircon, with cargo rails and bits fastened on the top and sides. However from a vehicle controls point of view, there's a lot more to go wrong and as far as Land Rover touring is concerned, less is more.

Next we stopped for a couple of nights at a "campsite" that was nearly as rustic as the previous one at the tip of the Cap. Although it's a vineyard with an added set up for campers, it was almost forgotten by the operators who didn't seem to do anything to improve the life of a camper. This was more than compensated for though by a stupendous, effectively private beach right in front of our spot and with only one other campervan there it was empty!

By now the heat was setting in and night time here was hot and sticky. We couldn't get as much as a zephyr into the roof and went to bed sweating and wishing we were at the airy Cap.

News started to come through of the predicted heatwave that is to cover much of Europe - something that we had seen on Windy.com, last week. This is the current prediction for tomorrow, 27th June. Corsica is looking a little less extreme than much of the mainland. Those dark reds are high 30s / low 40s Centigrade. Wow!

Corsica Ferries 19

The port of Nice wasn't designed with the loading of car ferries in mind. The crowded approach ended at the quayside where a queue of sorts was already forming. Our paperwork was checked once by a cheeky lad who greeted us with a Sir Tim and Mademoiselle Peel and then changed it to Sir Timothy before changing it back to Tim after I hit him. A cursory glance "in the box" (the back) and then we waited for the call to drive around the corner. Very slowly we progressed along the quay with vehicles getting more and more tightly packed. With the ferry nowhere to be seen (it actually docked at 1.30 pm) we all started to warm up.

Happily there was a Defender 90 in front and I practised my French Land Rover knowledge by talking to the owner, a senior citizen who spends part of his time on Corsica and the other part somewhere near Nice. I introduced him to ma femme and he introduced me to his fille, pas ma femme!  There was plenty of LR stuff to discuss as we waited and waited.

In spite of the traffic and heat, Nice has to be one of the nicest ports to use. The ferry berth is as close to the road as you can imagine, with apartments directly opposite. As we left the berth the whole sweep of the bay opened up and then we were off on a mere 5hr cruise across the Med. to Bastia.

The two Land Rovers got primary positions for a quick getaway at the stern and with no formalities at all, we disembarked quickly and headed north, up the coast. to our nominated campsite, Camping La Pietra at Marine de Pietracorbara.

We like it here already. It is France with a twist. It feels older yet is full of everything modern. It isn't yet busy, at least not where we are, however we are told that July and August are very busy.

It is absolutely spectacular, with mountains dropping direct to the sea. The highest point is about 2,700m so there are some serious hills around!

Our first few days will take us anti-clockwise around Cap Corse, the big peninsular at the north of the island. This is the view from the north end of the Cap. It's the place where we camped on our second night. More of this next time...