Day 2

We are approaching Bastia

Our ferry at disembarkation

With its 50,000 citizens, Bastia is the second biggest town on Corsica. Its atmosphere is rather italian than corsean, not only because of its architecture but also because of people's activity.

When you enter Bastia by ship and disembark you find yourself right in front of the Place St. Nicolas, a large free area with trees, banks, memorial and all that's part of such places. The tourist information office (Syndicat d'Initiative) is situated nearby; we fetch a bus timetable from which we take that our bus down the eastern coast departs already at 08.30, and we decide to take the next one that departs at 16.00. It's now 08.15 in the morning, so we buy things for breakfast that we then have in the shade of a palm tree. Then we stroll the Boulevard Paoli (Bastia's lifeline) where we buy maps for our hiking tour. In addition, we visit the Palace of Justice, the church Ste. Marie (worthwile but tricky to find) and the citadel (at least the part of it that's free of charge).

Bastia seen from the citadel

Bastia loses much of its romance that it has viewn from the sea when you walk through the old part of the town. Not one single house has intact plaster, and the walls are full of cables and pipes. The traffic is as worse as in any major city on the continent; no wonder because statistically 10 Corses own 7 cars, and the others have motorbikes and scooters. Add the tourists with their cars, and it'll result in pretty crowded streets.

As a "base camp" for day trips, Bastia is very well suited with its working infrastructure. There are phone booths round every corner, two supermarkets near the town center and lots of small shops where you really can buy everything you might (or might not) need.

We pass some time at the old harbor lying in the shade; it's noon, time for the "siesta". You can't do anything else in the heat; everything is closed and you are even sweating without moving. At Place St. Nicolas we take place in a street café; one bottle of mineral water (900ml, 3 glasses) costs us amazing 30 FF, but it's our first cool drink for two days and it's worth the money.

At 15.30 it's about time to go to the bus station, that is the track for cars turning right vis ā vis the post office. The ticket office is open; the trip to Favone (some kilometers north of Porto Vecchio) along the east coast costs 90 FF and takes place in a brand new Kässbohrer coach. The driver starts the radio and the engine (in this order), and just a few minutes after departure it happens: two monitors start to flicker, and right before our eyes and ears (and how!) tyres scream and cars fly (along with debris and bullets). Half a dozen people don't survive the first ten minutes; this movie that spoils our bus ride romance is titled "L'Opération Corned Beef", and it features a german rogue who loves horrible german poetry.

Since looking at the screen isn't our thing we use the windows instead and have a look at the mountains on the right side of the street (that is those flat hills near the coast; we're going to climb much higher ones) covered with macchia. On the left hand side there's just one bathing beach that goes from near Bastia all the way down to Porto Vecchio. If you just want to swim and grill, the east coast is your best choice.

At some time the driver shows some consideration. First he turns down the volume, and then it's all over. You'll have to rent the video tape if you want to know what happens to the rogue at the end; I don't know either.

We stop at a bistro for a small break; I quit the bus to stretch my legs, and the heat outside hits me like a hammer. The air condition definitely did its best. I catch most of the passengers who hang about outside self-polluting - their lungs. I just can't understand why they are trading the smoke with the fresh air inside.

Suddenly the driver puts on the brakes: a car ventures out of a driveway a bit too far. We just pass the radiator, and our driver gets out and talks very seriously to the driver of the car, and he's definitely hot-tempered.

Favone comes into sight; we quit the bus and go to the camping site. We're lucky, it takes just about half an hour to find a free place, five more minutes to pitch the tent and about 15 minutes to get the spaghetti done. They don't manage to have a close look at the world outside the pan; we're pretty hungry, and it's our first warm meal for two days. Then we uncork one of two bottles of wine that we bought in Bastia (Muscat doux - a corsean white wine with 15 vol%); the wine tastes a bit like Irish Whiskey - and it gives you a good kick at the head, too. Its flavor is rather tart, but once you get used to it the Muscat runs down the throat like oil (30 FF a bottle of 750ml, that's about one and a half pints).

It's dawning very quickly, and at about 21.00 it's dark, but that does not keep us from indulging ourselves in some personal hygiene. On the way to the sanitary block I find a tree-frog and a dytiscus marginalis (German "Gelbrandkäfer", I looked up the latin name for those of you who want to know because I couldn't find the English name), a huge beetle of about 3cm (1 1/4") that lives in ponds and that can't even walk! On a dusty camp site! Don't ask me how it got there...

I don't get much sleep that night; it's awfully hot inside the rather small tent with three persons, too hot to even wear a T-shirt, let alone a sleeping-bag. 'Til 02.00 it cooled off enough to use the sleeping-bag as a blanket, and I must have dropped off around 03.00.