GR10: Our story
Part 4: Car tour around Corsica
Wednesday June 18th: Conca - Bonifacio
Early in the morning Edwin leaves for the bus, while I stay at Conca. After breakfast at the gite together with Jacqueline and Alex, we say goodbye and they leave with a small bus to Porte Vecchio. Just before they leave, Jacqueline give me some Sudoku puzzles from a booklet. I am alone. Since the muscito's are annoying, I stay inside the tent for most of the time. I only leave the tent for a short walk through Conca and when I have to go to the toilet.
In the mean time, Edwin walked to Santa Lucia, where he took the bus to Cazamozza. From Cazamozza he hitch hiked to Vizzavona, where we have left our car at the railway station. At about 3 pm he returned at COnca. Together we break up the tent and leave for Bonifacio. We stay at a campsite just north east of Bonifacio.
Thursday June 19th: Bonifacio - Calcatoggio
After breakfast we break up and go to pay a visit to Bonifacio. We park our car at one of the car parks. Since we are early, we the car park is unmanned so we do not have to pay. We walk to the harbour of the town and from there we climb up to the old town. From here we pay a visit at the King of Aragon's steps.
After the visit we drive north to Propriano and Ajaccio. We want to follow the coast line but we did not succeed completely. On our way we stop at a bay for lunch. To get to the beach we have to descend along a steep road. Since we forgot to bring our bathing cloths from the car, we just sit at the beach and enjoy the magnificent view. After Ajaccio, where we only had a tank stop, we continue in the direction of Calvi and again we try to follow the coast line, so we choose Calvi par la côte. At Calcatoggio we stop at the campsite. Here we find a very nice spot on a large green gras lawn to pitch the tent.
Friday June 20th: Calcatoggio - Bastia
After breakfast we continue in the direction of Porte. At Les Calanches - the red rock formations at Petra Piana - we have our first break. Although the early hour, it is already quiet crowded. After a break of about half an hour we continue to Porte. Here we do some shopping.
After Porto we leave the coast and go to Corte via col de Vergio. At the col we have lunch. Again we enjoy the view and try to see where we have been walking last week. Next we visit Corte, where we make a tour on foot and buy some souvenirs. Finally we drive to a campsite at the coast just south of Bastia.
Epilogue
The last morning on Corsica, we go to the beach. At eleven o'Clock we leave the beach, take a shower and break up, since our boat leaves at 2 pm from Bastia. Since the restaurant on the boat is closed when we like to have dinner, we leave Livorno without dinner. We take the motorway to Milano. At a small restaurant we have something to eat - I do not remember what we had. From Milan we go the Varese. In Varese we have trouble to find the right way to Ponte Tressa. Our first attempt to come from Varessa to Switserland via Luino failed since the road is closed and the deviation leads us back to Vasese. After an hour driving around, we finally leave Varese on the right road. It is already midnight when we leave Italy. During the night we drive across Switserland and early in the morning we enter Germany. Here we see a lot of orange coloured cars that are on their way from Switserland to the Netherlands. For us this is the first sign that the Netherlands are no longer in the running to become champion. Later we also hear it on the radio.Sunday June 22nd around noon we arrive home. We unpacked our car and our backpacks. The cloths that we wore on the GR20 we immediately do in the washing machine, a sign that our vacation has finished.
Last modified August 2009