Summer highlights
(September 02)

Welcome to our neighborhood
(August 02)

Corsica (October 02)

Chers Amis,

In this edition we'll tell you about our trip to Corsica. First, though, we are thrilled to announce the birth of our granddaughter, Ava Rose Cantlon, born October 24 in Boston to Kristin and Ben. She arrived just as Kristin was growing uncomfortable, wishing the baby would come, and so she did, two weeks early and very quickly. Kristin reported that at four days old Ava is sleeping through most of the night, and we hope that all of this is a harbinger of gracious cooperation to come. We will go to Boston to meet her just before Thanksgiving; we are showered with blessings. If you would like to see pictures of this most darling baby, you can do so on the web at http://bencantlon.home.attbi.com.

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We planned a two-to-three-week trip to Corsica, the French island about a hundred miles south and east of our town. Corsica is 114 miles long by 52 miles wide and has a population of 230,000. Hiking trails criss-cross the mountains and valleys of the island. We saw many serious hikers while we were there, a striking and welcome contrast to the elegant population of the Riviera. Corsica is also a Mecca for divers, and our Lonely Planet travel guide devotes many pages to hiking and diving. Corsica has a history of violence and poverty. Many states went to war to rule it; none sought to improve or develop it. Italian city states fought for control of the island, and Genoa ruled there for 500 years. The English had it for a short time. For a few glorious years, beginning in 1755, Corsica was independent, when national hero Pasquale Paoli led a successful revolution and established an enlightened government much ahead of its time, as well as a university. Another native son, Napoleon Bonaparte, ultimately conquered the island for France, and it has remained French ever since. Today there are two active political movements, one in favor of greater autonomy for French Corsica, the other for complete independence. There is sporadic but serious political violence, though none is directed at tourists, who provide Corsica's major source of income. We thought we would circumnavigate the island, and maybe even cross to Elba, before returning to the continent.

As it happened, we spent more than a month on Corsica in only three places, all on the western coast, because we couldn't tear ourselves away. The rest will have to wait for next year.

We left St. Jean on a balmy night in September right around midnight. We wanted to arrive in the afternoon because fog often shrouds the island in the morning. The sea was calm, there was almost no wind and we motored most of the night. In the morning the wind picked up and we raised our sails. Corsica came into view while we were still many miles out at sea, at first hazy and unformed, then gradually hardening to layer upon layer of craggy rock soaring against the sky, the first layer clear and subsequent ranges less and less so. At four in the afternoon we sailed into Calvi, the nearest town and a popular tourist spot with an ancient citadel guarding the beautiful bay. We set our anchor, stayed at Calvi for over a week, and can hardly account for the time. The weather was beautiful. We swam off the boat, hiked around the town and up into the citadel and walked the beautiful four-kilometer beach. We took a rickety old train along the coast to Ile Rousse, a small town with a rocky island just off its coast. It took forty-five minutes to cover the ten miles from Calvi; we enjoyed the promenade along the beach and our picnic dinner when we got there.

When bad weather set in, we moved into the Calvi port and there made friends with a French cruising couple, Christiane and Pierre, sharing dinner and stories and practicing our French. Christiane and Pierre have been living on board for two years now, since Pierre retired, and they love it. They have their two tiny, aging poodles, Hercule and Etamine, on board as well. The dogs have adapted beautifully, it seems, to life on the boat. The time went by.

We left Calvi and headed south in light wind toward the tiny hamlet of Girolata, which can be reached only on foot or by sea. The coast between Calvi and Girolata is magnificent, with huge rock formations, called Calanques, rising out of the water. Toward Girolata, this coast is a nature preserve called Scandola, without roads or even hiking trails. We arrived and anchored in Girolata's tiny bay, just below the old fort; once again, we stayed for over a week. There were nights there when we were the only boat in the bay; on other nights as many as fifteen boats came in. Every day ferries from Porto and Ajaccio to the south as well as Calvi to the north brought visitors for an hour or so, as part of their tours. A small grocery store on the beach also sells souvenirs. There is a restaurant there as well, and another up the hill. There are a few homes, spectacular scenery - we have far too many pictures - and a winter population of ten hardy souls. Girolata has an interesting association, called ATAG, Association du Transport Autonome de Girolata. The people who live there pooled their resources, and, with help from a national grant, bought a boat and the services of a pilot, so they can get themselves and things they need into and out of town. We saw the small blue boat ply the waters from the tiny harbor out to sea and southward several times a day on most days. We saw foodstuffs come in, hard goods including a big hot water heater, crates of who knows what, as well as relatives and pets.

So what did we do there? Again, it's hard to account for the time. We hiked, we swam, we fished (unproductively, sad to say). One day we walked to the nearest telephone and post office, two and a half hours out through the mountains, then another nine kilometers on the road - we hitchhiked much of that stretch - to the town of Partinello to do our business, and then back. We made friends with Chris, who runs the Girolata grocery store in season, and who sleeps in the tower of the old fort during the summer. It's eerie to see her light on at night, high up in the crumbling ruin. She told us more about the intensely political nature of the island. It's difficult, for example, for people from outside of Corsica to buy property. In spite of the agitation for more, the island enjoys an unusual amount of autonomy compared to the mainland prefectures in the highly centralized French government. The Corsicans are fiercely protective of the island. There are no big foreign hotels or resort complexes, and from the map it looks like at least forty percent of the island is protected wilderness in five major national parks. The population is concentrated in a few small cities along the coast; the largest, Ajaccio, has a population of 59,000. There is one major inland city, Corte, established by Pasquale Paoli as his capital. Corte is the site of the modern-day Universita de Corsica Pasquale Paoli, established in 1981, nearly two centuries after Paoli established his university. Small towns dot the island as well. Mostly, though, it's wild.

Corsica is covered with dense and low-growing vegetation, called the maquis. The maquis is a mixture of many different flowering plants, including rock rose, myrtle, tree heather, mastic, asphodel , strawberry trees, holm and cork oak and others. The maquis has a haunting and beautiful fragrance, somewhere between floral and spice. The aroma is pervasive on the island, almost intoxicating. They say that Napoleon, at the end of his life and in exile on Elba, longed not for his battles and victories and palaces and monuments, but for the delicious, seductive scent of the maquis.

We explored the coast of the Scandola preserve in our dinghy on one beautiful day, motoring into inlets among the rocky promontories, stopping to picnic and swim at a secluded beach. We took short hikes in different directions from town. On one of these, Tom saw a wild boar looking at him from under a bush. Many of these boars, called sangliers, roam the island, and they are prized by hunters. Sanglier hams and sausages are famous throughout France.

After more than a week at Girolata, we tore ourselves away, and again sailed south. This time we anchored in a wide bay just outside of Cargese, and, when the weather turned rough after a few days and the wind blew from the unprotected direction, we sought shelter in the tiny Cargese port. Again we stayed for over a week.

Cargese was settled over 300 years ago by 800 Greeks who were fleeing the conquering Turks. They were given a parcel of land outside of what is now Cargese, by the ruling Genoese, on the two conditions that they change their religion from Greek Orthodox to Catholic and adopt Italian names. They complied with the name change -- there is not a single Greek name to be found in the region today. They changed religion too, though at first in name only, and lived on their land for almost 100 years until native Corsicans drove them out. They fled south to Ajaccio, where they lived for another half-century. By this time the island was French, and one of the kings Louis granted them once again the land at Cargese. They moved back and built a beautiful church to house the now-ancient artifacts their ancestors had brought from Greece. Slowly, over time, they did change their religion to Catholic, and the church today is an Eglise Catholic de Rite de Grec. In the meantime, the non-Greek inhabitants of Cargese decided they needed a church too, and built and decorated a similarly fine one, placed so it faces both the Greek church and the sea. And so these two impressive sanctuaries stand across their courtyards and gardens from each other, and one sees them from the sea and from most everywhere in town. The parish priest says mass in one church on one Sunday, and in the other church on the next.

From Cargese we hitched a ride - having missed the one bus that day - north to the town of Piana, where we hiked out to see the Calanques from land. We saw from the south Partinello, the town we had hiked to from Girolata, and after walking about six kilometers along the road began the trek by rocky trail to the tower at Capo Rosso, at land's end. Again the countryside was gorgeous, and the tiring day's hike well worth the effort.

At Cargese we met Daniel and Lucie Mattei Perrier. Lucie is a native Corsican, very independent, who began and still runs a tiny photo and bookshop in town. She is a fine photographer, and sells postcards of her work, as well as larger versions. Daniel is retired from his job in a hospital at Ajaccio, and now works in the shop as well. He is responsible for the small and very interesting collection of books offered there, mostly in French with a smattering of other languages. He introduced us to Granite Island: A Portrait of Corsica, by Dorothy Carrington, an Englishwoman who spent much of her life on the island, and who wrote beautifully about it. If you would like to learn more about Corsica and its history, its culture of vendettas and superstition, pride and loyalties, read this carefully researched and documented book. The photo shop is open for the six or seven months of the season, during which time Lucie and Daniel live in Cargese in the house where Lucie grew up. During the winter they live at Ajaccio; Daniel took us there for an interesting day trip.

At Ajaccio, the capital of Corsica, we visited the Perrier's lovely seaside apartment, had lunch at their favorite creperie (where we got the recipe for the marvelous braised rabbit we ate), and went out to the Iles Sanguinaires, the spectacular rocky island formations that turn red in the evening light. We did a number of errands, finally replacing our broken ship's barometer. We also visited the house where Napoleon was born and the enormous monument to him and his bloody victories, built above the rocky grotto where he played as a boy.

Lucie and Daniel wanted very much to go for a sail. The day was calm - a good day for a sail with guests. Daniel was interested and helpful as we finished our preparations, and our trip began well. Suddenly, as happens in the Med, the weather turned - to choppy seas and stiff winds - and the ride was rough. Daniel got sick -- he hadn't taken the mal-de-mer medicine as a precaution as Lucie had done. We turned back and finished our outing with lunch at the dock. In spite of his illness, Daniel was glad to have seen his town from the sea, and gamely proclaimed the trip a success.

We sailed back to Calvi in preparation for our return home, in late October now. Fickle weather kept us there, though the wind direction made it possible for us to anchor comfortably in the bay during our stay. We visited again with Christiane and Pierre, and made a short trip with them to a chapel overlooking the town. We set sail for the continent at midnight, following the forecast of a calm window between bouts of rough weather. Luckily, we reefed our mainsail, a conventional precaution for a night sail.

We left in good winds - about ten knots - with a bit of a swell in the sea. During the first couple of hours, the wind and sea built, so our ride was exhilarating and fast. As the wind speed increased though, to 25 to 30 knots (considered strong breeze to near gale), and the waves grew to about 2.5 meters, we became less comfortable. Tom went to the rail four or five times, and while I was less sick, I wasn't chipper. The weather continued all night, not rough as sailing experiences in general go, but rougher than we had had. The good news is that Bloom sailed faster than we thought she could go, sailed solidly and steadily on an even keel - very comforting - and our auto-pilot, Homer, did beautifully, keeping our course better than we did steering by hand. We are continually discovering our marvelous boat.

By morning, the seas and winds had calmed, and as we approached the mainland, now in view, we sailed in sunshine and comfort. We had had a marvelous time in Corsica, looked forward to going back next year, and were ready for further exploration of the south of France over the winter. We dawdled a bit at sea, reluctant to end our trip, and then, as we continued to bask in glorious weather and the delights of our holiday, Homer steered us gently, unerringly home.

A bientot,
Abby

Copyright © Thomas and Abby Bloom, 2002