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...

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On y va

Hooray. We are off. The ferry was booked a few weeks ago and the pressure was then on to get all sorts of jobs finished on the house and Landy. Major cosmetic work was to cover the grey front doors with paint that matches the rest of the vehicle. On the engine a coolant leak had developed behind the water pump and so the P gasket and adjacent core plug were renewed. Also a cheapy head unit from those Chinese people replaced the old Sony fm radio. Now we have opened up the wonders of Car Play and all that comes with it. Finally the 9th gen iPad with WiFi became a 9th gen iPad with WiFi and ‘cellular’. This means we can use OsmAnd Maps which need no data and get their gps position off the ‘cellular’ chip in the iPad. More on this useful map in subsequent posts. We headed towards Portsmouth for a mid morning ferry via our old neighbours in S-I-V. There we had a great few hours updating each about our families and then proceeded to save the NHS, the country and the world too. I mean why no...

Onwards

You can’t visit a classic car enthusiast without admiring their car and we got our timing right, as it was the monthly club meet on Sunday. This was held at the Hippodrome in Maisons Laffitte, so it was just up the road. The definition of ‘classic’ here is 30 years and so many of the vehicles there looked very familiar to us 😳. TR5 and TR6, MGB, RR, BMW, Maserati, of course the Jensen Interceptor that our host drives, 2CV, Caterham 7, a beautiful Austin Healy 3 litre and then this… This is identical to mine, a Fiat 850 Sport Coupé, that I owned from 1978-81. Seeing it, brought back memories of welding, brazing, stripped driveshaft splines, clutch on the M1 and many miles of amazing touring. We drove around France on a camping road trip for all of September 1978 and the following year did the Ardennes for a month too. Here’s Nige’s Jensen… Maisons Laffitte is a very nice area to the west of Paris centre. The mansion is now owned by a trust I think and is a beautiful building. All we ne...

Towards Savoie

We stayed on the motorway, which for us is unusual in France but we have experienced the traffic calming in the towns and villages. A direct and fast journey was planned and achieved, with a nice morning stop and appropriate accompaniments. We arrived at Saint-Jean-de-Chevelu which is a little west of Lac du Bourget, the huge lake which has Aix- les-Bains on its eastern shore. We went to a previously researched campsite, Camping des lacs. This is a lovely spot of about 100 places for a mix of tents, camper-vans and smaller motor homes. There are also cabins and some that were a bit like shepherd’s huts. It’s situated next to two small lakes (surprise!) and there’s a ring of small mountains around. These would have been peri-glacial lakes 🥸 back at the last ice age and have now become a joint playground and eco place. You can swim, fish and respect ‘nature’ here but need to get in the right part at the right time to do what’s allowed. A lady pecheur told us of carp and ...

Peelies travels

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