Galeria and the Fango Valley

Saturday 10 May

We had a pretty slow start to the day and worked out our rough plan for the next ten days, then set out for some more exploration.

This time, we headed south on the D81 which goes past the airfield at Sainte Catherine.  At first the road was fairly flat and straight, but at Suare the road swung right and started climbing.  After a short while, we reached a pass, Bocca du Narsolinu at 433M.  As we dropped down into the valley it became quite agricultural and the road followed the river Marsolinu.

Eventually, we crossed quite a large bridge over the river and headed for the Fango valley.  The small road heading up the valley, the D351, is very pretty.  It is narrow and windy and has loads of wild flowers growing alongside it.  The road also follows the river Fango which is a rocky clear river which sometimes drops into small gorges.  We stopped several times to take pictures and to try and see some birds.  Sadly the only birds of note were the Blackcaps.

At Baridana, we turned around and headed back down the valley, rejoined the D81 and headed toward Galeria.  At the bridge we had earlier crossed, there was a turn off to the village, the D351 again.

We drove down to the port which is very small and then went slightly back up the hill and stopped for lunch at a cafe overlooking the bay.  We had a salad lunch again sitting outside on the terrace.

After lunch, we headed back again to the D81, crossed the bridge and turn immediately left onto the D81b.  This road, again very small, followed the coastline all the way back to Calvi. The road also crosses two small passes, the Bocca Bassa at 122M and the Bocca Serria at 146M.  Mostly, the views are spectacular along the road, but one section near Argentella,  runs between high hedges of maquis which restricts the view.

At one spot we stopped to look at a snake in the road which sadly had just been run over.  We think it was a Whip Snake.  Further down the road, we stopped to look at the view and found ourselves looking at a selection of car wrecks that had clearly not managed to negotiate the bends and had gone flying over the cliffs.

Back at Calvi, we managed to park near the citadel and walked down to the port for an ice-cream.