We woke up fairly early again, I guess it is early to bed, early to rise whilst camping!
We bought bread from the campsite shop which opened for the season today. After eating, we headed out in the car searching for the seemingly elusive Corsican Nuthatch, Wallcreeper and Lammergeier in the mountains.
After a brief stop in Ghisonaccia for the post office and bank, we headed inland on the D344 heading toward the village of St Antoine. The road was dead straight all the way to the village but liberally peppered with speed humps which seem to infest the island everywhere you go. This may be a reflection on the driving style of the locals who seem to drive over the speed humps without slowing down anyway. No-one takes any notice of the 30kph speed limits!
From St Antoine, the read got rather twisty and started climbing into the mountains. Soon, the cliff walls started closing in and we entered the Defile de l'Inzecca. This gorge is very scenic with the river tumbling down below and sheer cliffs either side of the road. None of the birds we were looking for were seen here!
The road went through a tunnel and then the valley opened out again. After Sampolo, the cliffs closed in again as we climbed up to the village of Ghisoni. We joined another road here, the D69 and stared climbing again in amongst pine trees. We stopped at a bend in the road to look for birds, but only found Spotted Flycatchers. Eventually the road topped out at the Col de Sorba at 1311M, surrounded by mountains well over 2000M high.
From here, the road dropped down to join the main road, the N193, at Col de la Serra at a lowly height of 807M! The views from the large layby just north of the road junction was a huge panorama along the Vecchio valley. The railway line between Ajaccio and Bastia passes through here and it must be a very scenic journey as the line winds around the moutains. Still no birds!
The main road then dropped down, passing through Venaco before another pass, the Col de Bellagranajo at 723M. From there it was only about 10km to the town, or is it a city, of Corte/Corti.
Most of the places in Corsica have French placenames as well as Corsican placenames, I believe that Corsican is a version of Ligurian, spoken in Genoa. This is because between the Genoans and Pisans ruled Corsica until the late 18th century. Eventually, it became part of France, and to this date is department 2A, Corse du Sud and 2B, Haute Corse. The local separatist movement, the FLNC (The National Liberation Front of Corsica), is quite active and has therefore spray-painted over the French placenames on most signposts. This sometimes makes it difficult to navigate using a French map!
Another hazard of driving in Corsica is that farm animals graze where they want, which includes on the roads, or roadsides. So far, we have encountered innumerable cows and a large flock of goats. Today, we met a small group of cows which include a rather large bull who gave us a grumpy gaze as we slowly inched past.
We managed to park easily, close to the centre of Corte and walked to the mains square, dominated by a statue of Pasquale Paoli, who led the liberation movement in the 18th century. We found a sunny restaurant in the square and enjoyed an excellent dinner. I had a green salad followed by Canelloni Briocciu washed down with beer. Lynn had a salad and half a cow for her lunch! It was certainly a huge entrecote steak anyway. Briocciu is a pungent local sheeps cheese, one of our guidebooks describes it as 'eye-wateringly strong', but I didn't find it so. It is sold as a soft cheese, like fromage frais and also in harder, more mature 'lumps' of cheese.
After lunch, we followed the D623 up the Gorge de la Restonica. This 15km long, no-through road is very narrow and much of the road is unprotected from the gorge below; it is probably not for the faint-hearted driver. Corte lies at 440M above sea-level and the Restonica road fairly rapidly climbs to 1260M. There are places to pull off the road for the the first 11km, but the final 4km is a no stopping zone with just a few passing places. About a kilometre from the end of the road, in May 2014, the road is blocked by a huge landslide which has not only taken out the road, but the bridge crossing the Restonica river too. There is plenty of parking just before the landslide which appears to be free. Supposedly, at the end of the road is the Bergeries de Grotelle and a paying carpark (!) and a snack-bar. The snack-bar is advertised as being a 20 minute walk along rough tracks from the landslide.
The road is very beautiful with loads of wild Hellebores and Cyclamens growing everywhere. The wild flowers were very beautiful but no birds of note except for Coal Tits. We even scoured the rock faces for Mouflons, but no luck.
Once back in Corte, we decided to head back to the coast and took the main road the N200 and drove the 30km down to Aleria. The road is quite a fast road and had little traffic on it. Once back on the coast, we joined the N198 for the 15km journey back to Ghisonaccia.
After a brief stop at the supermarket to buy bread for tea, we returned to the campsite and sat outside until almost 9-o-clock.
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