The three island tour. Corsica.

Living in a van. I’ll talk more about it this week.

A great place to start your van experience is France. The roads are huge. There are great places to park up all over the country, often for free. The driving is benign, if you can drive in Britain, you can drive in France. It’s three times the size of Britain, so there’s plenty to go at. And most important – every region has its own great wines, cheeses and meats. Just avoid the school holidays when every Frenchman is also on the road.

Corsica is not a great place to start.

However it is stunningly beautiful.

We can see snow capped mountains towards the centre, the bluest blue Mediterranean at the edges, and in the distance to the north the snow capped alps of Italy and France. The rest is a multitude of greens.

That’s if we’re stationary. Or we dare look up from the road for more than a second.

Most of the time our eyes are glued to the road, anticipating the next hairpin, hoping that eventually we’ll get into top gear.

Everything comes at a price. The price for the incredible beauty of this island is your attention – there’s always something else that needs it.

But let’s take a step back.

The south of France grows so much good. Not just vines. We passed miles of fruit trees, beautiful in blossom. Apple, cherry, pear. Olives too. Occasional oranges (like an occasional table perhaps?). Almonds. Scruffy trees, but great nuts and pretty in bloom. The Mistral dries the air, the Provence sky is as clear, as blue, as any artist told you it would be.

Toulon. 

A thousand miles from home and we finally see real traffic, but even then we’re not held up.

At the port two massive Corsica bound ferries tower over the waiting cars and vans. They are the strangely named Mega Regina and Mega Smerelda*. Ours can take up to 560 vehicles and 2000 people – that’s probably more than St Just.

This is no RoRo. This is a bastard difficult spin around just before you bord, then reverse from the blinding sunlight into the darkness of the hold. ArchieVan is one of the last on – it was a long wait, but it means we’ll be one of the first off.

Perhaps the Italian ferries we took across the Adriatic were as big as this, but that was years ago, we’ve forgotten how dwarfing these monsters are. Upstairs there are corridors reminiscent of those in eastern bloc hotels – far wider than they need to be, with walls clad in strange wood effect plastic sheets.

At exactly six o’clock we set off, and for the first hour this is the best cruise you can imagine as we skim the coast towards St Tropez before crossing the Ligurian Sea towards Corsica. As darkness fell so did we – into a bed more tired than us.

Corsica.

The fourth biggest island in the Mediterranean after Sicily, Sardinia, and Cyprus. it’s ever so slightly bigger than Crete.

As the sun rose, we approached the port of Bastia. We could so easily have been cruising into Kissamos on the west of Crete.

Head north to tour the Cap Corse. Only the cyclists were numerous, and often as fast as the van. There’s very little straight road on the Cap so delivering a smooth drive is a challenge. I’d driven 86 miles before I finally shifted the van up to top gear. Hitting 50 mph on a brief straight felt like an act of reckless abandon.

But oh the joy!

Corsica is empty (it’s also mostly closed). Almost every vehicle lives here. Departmental registration 2B in the north, 2a in the south.

At the highest point of the road I took a little jog further north. The bees were so numerous as to be constantly banging into me. Each footstep caused a scattering of lizards that had been casually sunning themselves. 

The flowers. Let’s see what I can remember. The heady scents of rosemary, fennel and thyme in the warm sun. Yellow clouds of Bermuda Buttercup, tiny marigolds and dandelion. Osteospermum. Celandine unfurling in the morning sunshine. Cyclamen in the shadows. Pretty little crocus like things wherever there was water. Lupins. Lupins, phlox and euphorbia grow as weeds along the roadside. Many different sedum. Asphodel – these were all over Crete at a similar time of year. Occasional poppies bring a splash of red among all those yellows and violets. Where gorse grows at home, here the bush of the roadside is broom with its similar flower.

Just like on Crete there were landslides with nothing to warn of the road being partially blocked around the next bend.

Unlike Crete, or unlike Greece, there is little roadside rubbish, and no litter of a thousand incomplete houses.

This Corsica. Birthplace of Napolean. This Corsica is growing on me. Fast.

Where to stay?

Some places make it known that wild van parking isn’t welcome. I understand. Corsica is one, but unlike France it makes little provision. There are campsites all over, but unfortunately in late March they’re closed. Completely closed. Even in Cornwall where good weather is a stroke of luck at any time of the year you can always find a site with hard standing and a hefty fee.

Travel or holiday?

Travelling by van is rarely a holiday. When I called her on Mother’s Day Peggy asked if we’re having a relaxing time. We’d just spent the day driving mountain roads. Relaxed was only going to come at the bottom of the bottle. 

Not finding your night’s spot early enough adds tension. Only the young pretend they don’t care about where they’re going to sleep until it’s bedtime.

This site is closed. That site is closed. That one says on Google that it’s open, so let’s wind a couple of miles down the tiny road to get there. Oh. No. It’s closed too.

The eventual first stop was at a riding school. Cecile, the owner, boosts her income with two van spots in the old town of Monticello. She’s there all year, and so parking is always available. It’s rudimentary, but clean, and the view down to the coast a few miles distant is a tonic to the weary. Her three dogs, several cats and numerous chickens all come to visit. The horses wander at will through the olive grove.

We’re both a little shocked by the drive so far and resolve on an easier day tomorrow. 

Big road?

We take the island’s only big road, the central axis connecting the main cities of Bastia and Ajaccio via the ancient capital of Corte high in the mountains. 

The big road is the busy road, the big road is the fast road. The speed limits only apply to the tourists. Local cars, vans, lorries and the occasional coach fly along at gravity defying speeds. Driving, I watch behind almost as much as I watch in front, ready to pull hard to the right when something approaches at speed. Best to make their passage easy, as they’re coming through come what may.

When I say the big road don’t get the wrong idea. The big road is still the bendiest thing many people will ever have come across, it also has some pretty fierce gradients – we were at 10% for several miles yesterday (for west country folk, that’s like going up Tregea Hill, Portreath, but it continuing at that gradient all the way to Hayle).

It would be exhilarating to drive these roads in any car that holds the road, my choice would be a Renault Alpine. In a 3.5 tonne van with a high centre of gravity is fun for a while, but it soon wears you down.

Corte.

Corte was the seat of power during Corsica’s brief spell as an independent state between 1755 and 1769, and it’s still the hotbed of nationalist ambition. Although I hope the global situation is making those firebrands reconsider the benefit of France’s protection and billions right now. 

The small city sits at around 500m above sea level and is surrounded by mountains, including the 2706m Monte Cinto, the island’s highest. 

Corte, like everywhere else, was largely closed. The tourist bars that line the steep climb to the precipitous citadel were closed. The citadel. Closed. All the campsites. Closed. 

Open? The reopening of its university in 1981 breathed life into the centre bringing youth as well as tourism. It seems the students are taught smoking early on – every open café (of which there were few) had a group of affluent looking youngsters sipping on Mattei and puffing their parents’ subsidies away. 

If we come back on a hiking trip we’ll definitely come to Corte – the options for walking vary from steady valley climbs to full-on mountaineering. We’ll take the former.

The dead.

The Italians like a mausoleum, it seems the Corsicans do too. Small, closed, chapel like buildings dot the roadsides. Around Corte I noticed many small graveyards, the size of a town garden. I assume these are family affairs like the mausoleums.

À la van.

Dinner in the van is one of the pleasures of the road. Eating outdoors usually tastes better, and with the big door open you have comfort and the outdoors rolled into one.

At the Forcalquier market Minty bought a punnet of shitake mushrooms. £6. From it she made three great meals. A mushroom on toast breakfast. A pasta dinner with lardons and tomatoes, and this morning’s fabulous omelette. £6? I’d have paid £12.

Peace and calm are restored by parking up at a campsite that opened just today – there’s learning here, there are already six groups in situ. We’re opposite the beautiful beach of Tenutella, outside Olmeto. There are more birds than we’ve seen for a while. The sun is shining. And we’re not moving until we have to.

Still.

Still is a state I crave. 

But we have to keep rolling on.

We’ve set ourselves a schedule determined by an organised walking excursion on Sardinia.  

Yes. Still is a state I crave, but not one I accept easily. 

Stank.

We’ll stay here for two nights, but on the first morning I was on the road, searching for a footpath into the hills. Many tracks appear on the mapping app but all were private and they let you know you weren’t welcome. 

Eventually I found success and started heading inland, uphill and through the woods. The smell is incredible. There’s nothing to pollute the air, but a thousand blooms to scent it.

The hill is immediately steep and I’m breathing hard. Creatures scurry from the path sides. I only ever catch sight of the lizards and I miss the bigger creatures.

There’s a copse where perhaps 40 magpies were roosting. I have never heard of a magpie attacking a person, but when such a big group is expressing its discontent at your presence it gives you pause to consider the risk.

Time is slipping away. I’m keeping Minty updated but I’m already long past the hour I suggested and I haven’t stopped climbing yet.

Up. Steeply up.

I climb through a granite outcrop (always comforting for a Cornishman). Still the low woodland cover keeps the temperature down. It’s greener than I expected, moss covered rocks in a place associated with heat. More cyclamen in the shadows. There’s asparagus fern, like the one I left when we sold Peggy’s house. Flowers from the nursery at home grow as weeds here.

So many flowers, bees, birds. 

Eventually a few natural features coincide with what I expected and I’m confident of my route, if not of the total distance.

The path levels off and joins a long-abandoned track to a house with no roof but a priceless view. It’ll see a new life and development soon I suspect.

Track becomes lane, lane becomes road. Road becomes the way home. Topping off the climb pushes me out into the light. 10 degrees jumps to 25 degrees and I’m glad I’m not climbing now.

We meet at the café near the site. A few hours. A lot of steps. Calm is restored by effort.

Time to observe.

At home there are always jobs even when your work is done. As night falls the pile of books exert their pressure “Come on, I have so much to tell you. Read me. You will learn a lot.” 

On the road there are fewer demands, even when you have a schedule to uphold.

This morning a pretty little wasp landed on my knuckle and seemed happy to be there. It stayed even when I put my glasses on to watch it properly. It settled into washing its head in a fashion I have never observed before. The head is utterly mobile and turns with a greater range than an owl’s. With its prothoracic legs it rubs its head and antennae, then passes these legs through its tiny mouth. In my head David Attenborough’s voice described all that I saw. 

More nature. Scops owl.

Many who have slept outdoors in southern Europe will have heard the scops owl, but chances are you’ve thought it was something else. The scops has a monotonous call that it keeps up through the night that you’re likely to believe is a burglar alarm, or perhaps one warning of a low battery.

Every night on Corsica we heard the scops. It was only when it changed location that you believed it wasn’t a smoke alarm at low ebb.

They turn up in Britain now and then, but I don’t think I’ve heard one there.

Go south.

Our pause at Olmeto is over all too soon and it’s time to drive the last 80kms or so down to Bonifacio for the ferry to Sardinia. These kms serve to convince me that this island has the least straight or flat roads of any place I have visited. The surface is good, and the driving isn’t too hard as there’s generally width to pass slow vehicles (like us), but my god it’s upy downy bendy!

It’s a small ferry largely loaded with 20 tonne aggregate lorries and again ArchieVan felt small as we reversed on board.

Next to us in the queue a woman is trying to steady her horse in its box, but I guess the horse knew what was coming. It was having none of it. Eventually she demanded action from her husband who’d been busy looking the other way, puffing on tabs. He discards his cigarette, sends her to the café, and, checking she was out of sight, whipped a croissant from his jacket pocket. In seconds Shergar is happy munching on sweet butter pastry and no longer trying to kick his way to freedom.

Corsica.

It feels as though we have merely skimmed the surface in these few days. There is so much to see here, and while most places were closed, that at least meant we spent less. I hope we’ll be back. I hope we’ll spend a few weeks, and maybe hike some of the many trails, swim from those glorious beaches, and work our way through the island’s menu.

Small ferry, Sardinia bound.

*Later we learn that a bay on north west coast of Sardinia is called the Smerelda.