Travel

Corsica: Ajaccio to Corte

Train from Ajaccio to Corte, Corsica

The plan today is to get to Corte. There are two trains a day, which effectively means that I have to choose between sightseeing in Ajaccio or Corte — with daylight hours fading fairly early there would be no time to do both. Since I’m back in Ajaccio on Friday evening I decide to take the early train.

A 6.30 alarm call on a Saturday comes as a shock to the system.

The train leaves on schedule and, in its two-hour journey time, takes me through some spectacular scenery. A local who introduced himself as I got on the train, clearly used to the views and the journey, seemed bemused by my constant picture taking. “Did you see an animal?” “No, just the view, the mountains.” “Oh.”

Arriving at Corte station, Corsica

Corte is very hilly as I find when I try to carry my bags to the hotel. The hills give it a dramatic setting. As the day passes I see the clouds descend, obscuring the top of the hills, and rain threatens to fall.

Before this I wander around town. The yellow buildings against the bright blue sky looks like Tuscany or the south of France, the flaking paint, which at home you’d consider bad maintenance, here looks quaint. The main street, Cours Paoli, has the usual selection of shops, including a baker, tobacconist and sellers of tourist merchandise. One unusual piece was the tee shirt with Che Guevara and the word Corsica emblazoned beneath. I wasn’t aware that he’d made it here?

Corte town centre, Corsica

Mingled amongst the souvenirs and pastries were many caf?s, one after the other. They all look pretty much the same! That is to say, pretty good. I stop at one in Place Paoli for a panini and cappuccino.

(A quick aside: Paoli is the father of Corsican independence, having established Corte as its capital city.)

Corte town centre, Corsica

I visit the Citadel, home to the Museum of Corsica. The museum is large and modern, complete with audio tour, replicas of any object they don’t have to hand and videos. The content is less impressive than the execution. Sure, it’s supposed to be more about anthropology than history but still, telling us how people used to live less than a hundred years ago hardly needs much of an imagination.

View of Corte from the Citadel, Corsica

The views from the citadel are worth the entrance fee however. It’s possible to see over the whole town and much of the valley.

View of Corte from the Citadel, Corsica

The stunning views will be paid in sweat rather than Euros for most of the rest of the week as the walking starts tomorrow.

Travel

Corsica

2 Comments

Flying to Corsica

As I fly over it, I note the vivid blue-green colour of the water as it glistens in the midday sun. This is not the Mediterranean as I approach Corsica but the English Channel shortly after leaving from London City airport. It’s amazing how the sun enhances even the most seemingly mundane scenes.

It’s three hours and a change of plane in Paris before I see Corsica for real. In fact it was cloudy and only visible for the last few minutes of the descent. First impressions: very hilly, mountainous even. The cream houses scattered near the coast are attractive and give the impression of a place that is in the south of France or Tuscany.

As I walk much of the Mare a Mare Nord path I discover that it has a character of its own. Starting near the Corsican capital, Ajoccio, I take the train up to Corte and walk much of the route over to the west coast at Porto. For an island of its size, Corsica’s landscape is amazingly varied and beautiful.

The full story is available in the following thrilling instalments:

Please visit regularly for more travel pictures and commentary, or better yet, subscribe to my RSS feed!

Blog

What an amazing time

Gwen Stefani gig ticketOn the approach to Wembley there were a gaggle of vendors selling glowing rabbit ears and furry wands. We speculated whether this was where Gwen Stefani bought the wardrobe for her tour. They probably sell the same merchandise for most gigs here, but there are few other artists that I could imagine actually wearing such cheap and cheesy accessories.

Of course she didn’t, at least until about two thirds of the way through the set when she launched herself into the audience, alternately running around and standing in the crowd to sing a verse. At one point she borrowed some rabbit ears from a fan. Very fetching.

Okay, so I’ve now written two paragraphs about the gig and I’ve not said a word about the music. I think that’s a function of the kind of music she’s performing these days. At one end of the spectrum you have people like Madonna who do a show. This isn’t a gig in the traditional sense of the word. It’s tightly choreographed, with dancing that is tiring to watch much less perform and audience involvement limited to dancing and singing along. At the other end you have your standard four-piece bouncing around the stage; it’s all about presence, music and, maybe, a little banter. It’s a positive feedback loop.

Stefani tries to straddle the two worlds. Her dancers are energetic and well synchronised (but not quite up to the standards of Madonna’s “Confessions” tour), while she generally struts around them but not joining in. There are frequent dress changes, ranging from track suit pants to red, sparkly hot-pants. Every two or three songs she stops the music and switches into “banter mode.” We need to be louder than Paris. She’s nervous because her father-in-law is in the audience. This song was co-written by a member of Keane.

For me it didn’t quite work. The switch from the tunes to the “ad libs” felt forced, scripted in some places, random in others. You expect exhortations to sing along, but normally on the up-tempo tracks rather than ballads.

But that’s not to say that the gig as a whole failed. At the moment there are few other people making such fun, bright and energetic pop music, and even fewer with the quirky, playful nature of Stefani. “The Sweet Escape” tour reflects these qualities from beginning to end, the whole “who’s that girl” bit when the lights go down, in the choice of songs, the projected videos, the stage set and everyone performance.

In summary: well worth seeing.

PhotoFriday

The Beach

Baker Beach

This weeks PhotoFriday theme is “The Beach.” Here is my entry.

When I first saw the challenge I thought of the Danny Boyle movie of the same name. Unfortunately I didn’t go anywhere near a beach when I went to Thailand, and when I went to Ha Long Bay in Vietnam it was so foggy you could barely see it was there! So instead my entry is a picture of Baker Beach in San Francisco from my first trip to California.

Also, please vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Fantasy.” I’m entry number 160.

Opinion

Update: Belkin Wi-Fi Phone

I just realised that the story of my Belkin Wi-Fi Phone for Skype lacks any form of closure. But before we get there, let’s start with a quick recap in case you didn’t read the original review or its follow-up.

Last year, after realising that we had spent over ?30 in a quarter on line rental but less than 50p on phone calls, we decided to get rid of our land-line and rely only on broadband and VoIP technology. After some thought we went for Skype and a physical handset that connected to our wireless access point. This seemed like a great solution as leaving a computer switched on 24/7 just so we could recieve calls on our SkypeIn number didn’t appeal.

The appeal quickly wore off when it materialised that the Belkin handset just didn’t work very well. Other parties complained of an annoying echo while we complained that it drifted on- and off-line, meaning that people had to be lucky and call us when it was online. It also exhibited stability problems, often crashing during a call or even while in standby. Belkin were actually pretty efficient about taking the handset back and replacing it with a less broken one.

    We were initially quite happy with the new phone. It actually worked free of the power cable and people were able to call us on our SkypeIn number on a couple of occasions.

    Unfortunately, the more we used it the more we noticed its flaws. For a wireless device, one of its biggest problems is the fact that you pretty much have to leave it plugged in all the time if you want to reach the end of your call without the battery dying. It was fine to unplug it when the call came in but the battery life in stand-by mode meant that even leaving it unplugged in the office for half a day would have been asking for trouble if someone rang.

    Then there were the random hangs. Sometimes, as noted in my follow-up post, the time just stuck, the machine unresponsive. Actually, I tell a lie. If you pushed a button the back-light would come on, giving the impression that it was still alive, but it wouldn’t actually do anything, like make or receive a call.

    Of greater concern were those hangs half way through a call. Typically it would happen after ringing a phone banking service and being kept on hold for an inordinate amount of time. It’s amazing that the phone is still intact after letting us down so badly. Actually, after a several such hangs during what was supposed to be a single transaction it’s amazing that all furniture, glasses and windows are still in one piece.

    Now that I mention phone banking, there was another point where the phone would let you down. At the beginning of each call I was expected to enter my card number and PIN. Fine, but their systems never seemed to recognise the Belkin. Now maybe this is a localisation issue (we have to call both UK and US banks) and not something I can squarely place with the phone, but it was nevertheless a frustration.

    In the end we dare not use the phone to make important calls, fearing that it would cut out at some critical juncture. Equally, we weren’t keen on using it to call family as they, understandably, were irritated when we had to call back three times just to complete a conversation. In the end it was a nice ideal that just didn’t work in practice for what we wanted it for, so a couple of months ago I put it on eBay.

    Now we have our SkypeIn number forwarding to our mobiles, meaning that, like international roaming, we have a pay to receive calls. With the number of landline calls we get this is not a huge problem, but it’s sad that it currently seems to be the only viable method of using Skype without having a computer switched on 24/7.

    Photography, opinions and other random ramblings by Stephen Darlington