Tuesday 10 October 2017

In Sickness and In Health

The Holiday Continues

One of the things I like about Strava is the way it records where one has ridden. Here is an image showing where we've been in Corsica on our bikes since we arrived just over a week ago ...

We're starting to cover some ground

THE Cold

Di's cold is almost gone; she gave it to me; I'm on the mend but I've given it to Roberta! 

If you read the last post about the start of our Mediterranean holiday you will know that our friends Chris and Roberta joined us for a few days in St-Florent before we all moved across to Bastia to start our cycle tour. We did a few rides together, had a few evening meals to together and had a generally enjoyable time ... but unfortunately Roberta has acquired the cold that Di picked up and passed on to me.

Here's a photo of a lunch stop we had in one of the numerous villages in the hills south of St-Florent ...
Lunch with Chris and Roberta

... and the view of another hillside town just around the corner ...


On our last full day in St-Florent, Chris and I had a ride while Roberta and Di made a visit to Bastia to drop off some stuff we'd need overnight (our first day of the tour proper would take us up the east coast of Cap Corse and then back down the east coast to St-Florent). We visited a hill town high above the little port of Negru. About halfway up we got this great view down ...



Back in St-Florent I wanted to ride by the Citadelle to get a photo before we left ...





The day we packed up and joined our bike tour we rode over the hill and into Bastia via the scenic route. Here's a video I put together of the fun descent towards the end of that ride ...



Because Di and I had done a fair amount of cycling in the past week and both were a bit under the weather with the infamous cold, we opted out of the afternoon orientation ride. But we did, of course, join the group for dinner! On the way back we found cars we'd like to bring back home with us, and thought that they might just fit in our luggage - especially if we put the bikes inside them ...





Our tour company has two vans, one which tows a trailer with all our luggage in it. The morning of our departure from Bastia I looked out our hotel window and saw this view down on some of the preparations for the day ahead ...



The ride itself was absolute magic. One of the brilliant things about it is the number of Genoese towers scattered along the shore. Here are three examples ...







There was also quite a nice descent from the spine of the cape down to the western side ...






... and another nice view from the north of Negru ...


Beach culture is one of the attractions for many of the people who visit Corsica, and many of the towns along the coast owe their economic livelihoods to tourists visiting and spending Euros. However, every once and a while you come across secluded little corners like this one, far away from the madding crowd ...



While yesterday's ride was mostly coastal, today's traverse from St-Florent to Calvi was mostly inland. It was another magic day on the bike, with great views and stunning riding. Nothing too hard but enough to make you earn the kilometres - and alway interesting. My relive video shows reasonably well the terrain covered.  Here also are a couple of photos of Di and Bernadette, who we rode with for quite a lot of the day ...





... and one of Calvi, our port of call for the night ...




And now it's well past my bed-time so I will sign off there. Good night!