Ponte Leccia station; new trains on old tracks
Short after 10.30 the train to Calvi arrives, and it's a rather old model: we travel with the doors open and we can't even hear ourselves talk! The conductor can best be described as a "professional panic-monger". Whenever the train stops he runs round the train though there's nothing to run, he waffles a lot when there's nothing to say, and he saws the air all the time although there's nothing to gesticulate. Especially he manages to ask every person quitting the train if he/she didn't forget his/her luggage, and he shows everyone who enters the train to a seat in the car of his (unfathomable) choice. I agree with a Corse that this man really is a character and definitely not a real Corse since no real Corse would be that hectic in the brooding heat of the noon.
The ride takes us about three hours in total. We traverse the region near Novella where according to the papers there has been a fire of about 1000 hectares (2500 acres) in size, and it really is an awful sight. Everyone who's ever seen that and still throws away glowing butts doesn't have a backbone in my opinion.
The train winds between mountains and through tunnels 'til L'Ile Rousse (a harbor in the north), but then the ride goes along the beach, with just a few meters of sand separating the track from the sea. If you want to pass your vacation on a beach with a camping site nearby, just get off the train somewhere between L'Ile Rousse and Calvi, you can't do anything wrong.
Although the heat is overwhelming and the sea is really tempting we stick it out 'til Calvi and walk the town first. Calvi is situated at the coast on a spur and is inhabited by 3700 locals but invaded by up to 30,000 tourists during the season. It's a lively town that's fully adapted to tourism but not in an obtrusive way, there's not even that much traffic.
Calvi has a big yacht harbor and a huge beach where nearly all kinds of
sea-related sports take place. The oldest parts of the town are located
right in between the landmark, and that's once again a citadel. Just
that this one is a town of its own, with Foreign Legion barracks,
Church St. Jean-Baptiste, shops, and lots of dwelling houses.
Harbor and citadel of Calvi
So we lie there (sweating!) for some time, then we set out looking for a camping site. The first one that gets in our way (that is, we get in its (drive-)way) is called "Camping International", and since we don't feel like going on we stay there. It's an enclosed field, but we find a space that's plane enough to put a tent on. Right after dawn half a dozen plastered Italians in our neighborhood whoop it up, they party 'til after midnight, they bawl and try to sing, and that finds its poor climax when they sing the first stanza (that's no longer sung for very good reasons) of the Deutschlandlied, the German national anthem ("Deutschland, Deutschland, über alles", "Germany, Germany, more than everything"), with broad Italian accent - I'm dumbfounded, and if it were Germans I'd really feel ashamed. Throughout the whole evening someone's distantly beating the bongos - at least he gives a bit of truth to the site's name.