One last Corsican city - June 17, 2025

SUMMARY A day of “if I see any more beauty my head will explode”! We started with a walk around the quaint city of Corte. Afterwards we took one of the most breathtaking drives I’ve ever been on from Corte to Piana on the west coast and on to Calvi in the northwest. Narrow roads, hairpin turn after hairpin turn, blind curve after blind curve we wended our way through the mountains to the sea. Sharing the road with us on the aforementioned blind curves were, at some frequency, other cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles, bicycles, hikers, goats, pigs, cows and donkeys. Arrived in Calvi in one piece and checked into our awesome Airbnb on a hill overlooking town with a big negative-edge swimming pool. Good burger dinner at Le Cosy. - Karen

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DETAIL So yesterday was the first half of our drive from Bonifacio to Calvi and today’s our second. Very few of our lodgings during the trip included breakfast with our room, but this is one of the few. Like dinner last night we’re dining outside. It’s a French breakfast with a local flare (in the shape of the preserves). It’s breakfast breads, coffee, yogurt, and some fruit. It’s fine.

We pack, check out, and leave our luggage in the lobby. We plan to pick it up a bit later in the morning. Our thought this morning is to do one of the many walks down along the bottom of a valley nearby. The starting point for the hike is near a car charger, so we head there and hook up. We figure twenty minutes should be plenty.

While we’re charging we talk ourselves out of the walk. Aches and pains and the pain of hiking and then piling back into the car for a long, difficult drive doesn’t have the same appeal it did last night over wine. Instead we go and check out the old section of Corte. It’s cute and small. There are cafés and people having breakfast. Corte is a draw for tourists and this is where they come. There’s a castle up on a rock and houses, the usual fare. We’re amused but a bit unnerved by the “deratization” signs we see around. How bad does the problem have to be to have the whole town engage in a major ‘de-ratting’ effort. There are quite a few empty buildings, so lots of free lodging for the resourceful rodents.

Towards the end of our walk we get to a lookout over the valley we would have been walking. The valley looks pretty and we see a couple of other groups heading out for some long hike. They’re younger and better prepared. It looks like they do this regularly. Happy trails, we wish them from a distance.

Having gathered our luggage from our ‘hotel’ we drive on. We’re high up in the mountains, and are going higher. The roads have been designed to follow the curvature of what ever mountain we’re driving past. As such, the roads are very windy. It’s slow going but with pretty views. Our target for lunch is the city of Piana, on the water but up in the hills about it. If our math is right we’ll get there for a late lunch, hopefully not too late.

On the windy roads there are periodic warning signs, mostly for falling rocks. Other signs that amuse are for us to watch out for this animal or that animal. Today we’re seeing the animals themselves on the roadside, and sometimes in the road. Lots and lots of pigs. Big families of pigs. A few donkeys and cows. Lots of cows. Lots of goats. We see older ones and lots of very small younger ones. Just walking in the road or (for the cows, most of them anyway, along the side of the road). We do see pens, beside the road, presumably for gathering the animals, from time to time, but not today. We guess they herd the animals into their pens, perhaps at night? Or at the end of the season? Then at other times, like now, they just let them loose. Above the road it’s fairly vertical rock, and ditto below, so the animals stay close to the road, much to our shock as we come around a corner.

Driving here is scary for a number of reasons. The road is barely wide enough for two cars and often that other car is a camper van or truck. The windy road, with the great views, attracts a lot of motorcycles and they don’t like to follow anyone. There’s no passing lane and where they do pass you hope there’s no oncoming car too soon. If anything were to go awry, one possibility is that we plunge 100s of feet down to our demise. We’re hopeful that doesn’t happen, but it’s not a relaxing drive. It sure is pretty, though. Having an electric car we know how many kilometers of driving we can presumably still do, but that assumes that we’re on level ground. As we gain 1000 feet that eats up the battery quickly. This adds to the excitement of our drive.

The driving is slow for the reasons mentioned above, but we very often stop to enjoy the incredible views. We take a picture or two and then quickly jump back into the car. It’s slow going.

We get to where we wish to have lunch at 2:48. The kitchen had closed eighteen minutes ago. Drat. We give up and go into the town. We find a good looking place. Kitchen closed there, too. We finally find a sandwich place and have panini’s. Given the number of people sitting, eating paninis (in Piana) it seems everyone else is in the same boat as us. Thankfully the sandwiches are pretty good.

While we’re lunching we once again recharge the car. We’re only down to 50% but who knows what lies ahead. We still have a couple of hours til Calvi. We’re at sea level and we’ll be going over some more higher roads on the way. We switch drivers, pile back in and are on our way again. Between Piana and Calvi there’s less traffic. There’s less high alpine beauty but it’s still pretty, mostly views looking out over the Mediterranean. There’s been very little construction or building til now and this trend continues.

Driving into Calvi we pass the airport. It’s very tiny. We’ll be flying out of there in a few days to go back to Paris (a couple of days before our flight home). We drive through the small town and then turn onto the drive for our place. We’re on a very long, rutted, poorly maintained dirt road which makes us nervous. We get to our place (well, maybe it’s our place, who knows, there are no street signs or building numbers). Soon a healthy, tall, smiling young man, sporting a man-bun, walked towards us to welcome us. Viktor, our host. We’ve arrived.

Where we are is pretty amazing. We have a great view of Calvi, especially the citadel on top of the rock. There’s an enormous, beautiful pool, with a negative edge towards the city. Our rooms are nice and very well appointed. This will do nicely!

Unpacked and unwound we drive the short distance down the hill for dinner. Le Cosy is informal but well reviewed. We have burgers, fries, beer, and wine. The burgers come with well seasoned big tater tot disks. Not being overly adventurous we get them on the side and they’re great.

After dinner we drive through town. It’s now 10 pm, on a Tuesday. It’s very quiet. We’ll see more tomorrow in the daylight.

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Photos

Breakfast included with our room. It's good, especially the local fruit preserves. Coffee was OK but essential.

On a short walk after breakfast I found this poor animal in distress. He (she?) was happy to have me provide rescue services.

From in front of our hotel you could see the mountains that provide horse riding and hiking opportunities galore.

I was curious about this little building on our way to the hotel's car parking area. If you have a camper and the black and grey tanks need emptying, this is your building. Eesh.

The protected, if modest, castle of Corte. Close to the mountains.

Market square but not a market day.

Plenty offerings directed at tourists. Plenty of tourists.

Apparently plenty of (too many?) rats.

The V of the Valley where we were going to hike, when encouraged by wine, yesterday, while we were planning.

More pretty mountains as we drive on. Some with snow, even in the later half of June.

Dramatic rocks roadside as we drive. Sometimes a little too much drama just around the next bend!

If you have one pig you have a huge family of them, in all sizes.

Lots of dark, dense forest. Where can the sunlight penetrate to grow nice, green, edible grass? Beside the road, of course.

Sometimes the tourists box in the roadside animals, much to their seeming dismay. One can see how Eeyore got his gloomy life outlook.

Just one goat here, but we saw whole herds on the road. The little ones were awefully cute. No cabrito for me, tonight.

Sometimes we'd see the most amazing view, but weren't able to stop just then. We'd have to pull out when we could and get the 'runner up' shot.

The beach near Piana. Pretty but not visited by us.

One last picturesque picture near Piana before heading over the 'mountains' towards Calvi.

Finally to our air-bnb. We all agreed this would do nicely for the next few days. Warm water and not a bad view.

Besides a pool there is a pool table, a picnic table, and a bar with an awesome ice machine. Bingo!

Dinner at Le Cozy. Bottom left are the tater tot disks, well seasoned. They should be on the buger, but we're not that brave.

10:15 at night and it's dark but there's still some daylight left. Ah, being far north. The longest day of the year isn't far off.

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