Peelies travels

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. ...

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 time...

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...

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 waite...