When I say returned to Porto, it was really to do some shopping at the Spar and Carrefour Connect. However the Land Rover always attracts people and as well as shopping, we had a long conversation with a Dutch couple outside the Spar, who own a Defender "that is appreciating in value", as well as a house just up the road.
Apparently they bought the land forty years ago and built on it in spite of warnings about the then turmoil on the island, as various groups 'argued' about sovereignty in the most physical ways. They visit whenever they choose, as you no doubt do when you have a second home.
Conversation and shopping complete, we turned north from Porto and drove back along the initially most precipitous road, this time on the inside not the outside, so it was a little less scary. Turning down a narrow road with warnings for big motorhomes not to use it, we descended steeply to a campsite at the bottom, just back from the beach.
So we are now on the the north side of the Golfe looking back across to Piana above and the little Plage de Ficaghiola below, where we had been just a few days earlier. The driving arms, well full body really, had a workout on that route with a lot of gear changes and plenty of bends to navigate. These wouldn't normally be a problem if it wasn't for all the other drivers on the road. Why is it always me that has to take evasive action when an Italian, Belgian of whoever, comes around the corner straddling the white line (if there is one)? The lack of bumps and scrapes on our twenty three year old Landy might explain.
We are at Camping E Gradelle who's USP is Vos vacances entre Mer et Maquis... The Maquis is the thick, impenetrable evergreen shrub that is found over all this landscape, along with various deciduous trees. It isn't clear if the camping authorities intend to come back and finish their strap-line or if in fact they have intentionally left the reader hanging around for more...
Tonight we had our first meal out in over two weeks of holiday. That's fewer meals than the first road trip to France when, aged nineteen, we budgeted for one per week. We took one look at the menu and both chose Daube de Sanglier et son accompagnement. (Wild) Boar stew is a Corsican speciality but having seen the plethora of pigs living at the side of the road I thought that I would check with the owner that we would be eating Sanglier and not plain ordinary porc. It's just as well that I'm bigger than him as he wasn't best pleased and gesticulated at a picture of a fearsome boar to emphasise that it would indeed be the real thing.
We ordered a demi of rosé and the Daube but our suspicions were again stirred when the waitress asked us how we would like the Sanglier to be cooked. As she suggested cuit we decided to go along that route and had just a few minutes to wonder how one does in fact coo a stew 'medium', when it arrived, straight from the cooking pot. The accompaniment was a nice round of vegetables in a sort of soufflé and we thoroughly enjoyed the traditional dish.
At the beach, just down the road, we enjoyed great clear waters and empty spaces on a mix of rock and pebble, that is great for having fun like throwing stones and trying to juggle. Later we would watch an Italian family who came to the beach. Two girls of ten and about eight and a mongrel dog. Instead of doing normal stuff, Mamma walked straight to the rocks at the side of the beach under the small cliff and then, with bare feet, clambered along these big craggy slabs until she was out of sight around the corner. The two girls followed, also in bare feet, leaving Papà on the beach with the cane. It was all a bit odd really.
The swimming was good, the sheltered campsite no quite so good as the walking route to the toilet block required a scramble up a loose hillside and the shelter meant no breeze and some 'bitey' mosquitoes. The temperature also held-up overnight. It's not to easy to go to bed with the outside temperature at 28 degrees. It only fell to about 25 by morning but we put up with this as "we're on holiday"!
As is much the same at every place we have been so far, no-one wakes up in the morning, except us. These campsites are very quiet until well after 08:30 by which time some unlucky camping-place-pickers are already being fried by the sun if they aren't under shade. I was woken, not for the first time, by a woodpecker. I don't know which type it is but it has a very different noise to the lesser-spotted woodpecker that we have at home. They tap with a very fast, multi-tap noise like a machine gun, whereas these Corsican ones tap much more slowly, maybe just three or four times over a second or two and it sounds very different.
Our re-visit to this stretch of coast was complete when we again drove alone e Calanche on the road from Porto, through Piana, to the coast at Cargèse. The rock and stupendous drops to the sea are amazing and there was a welcome and very posh restaurant along the way which made "looking" all the more relaxing.
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