We really enjoyed exploring Bastia with its citadel full of narrow, old winding streets leading down to the port with more old windy streets. To our amazement it also had a train station with links to the centre of Corsica. We took the train to Corte which was a wonderful ride as the little train wound its way up through the mountains and Corte itself was lovely with a citadel perched on top of the town giving lovely mountain views and of course more old winding streets to explore and a delicious long lunch.
We don't feel as if we've done Corsica justice but we've found it quite unfriendly, very crowded, very hot and impossible to get around and explore. I'm sure most of that is the August effect but we thought it time to move on.......
Leaving the marina in Bastia after stocking up in the French supermarket, it looked as if we'd have a great sail for the 37 miles to Elba. Up went the sails and we were doing 5 knots with the wind on the beam - perfect. Very soon we were doing 2 knots so thereafter it was a very pleasant motor sail! To our horror the bay we'd planned to anchor in looked as if the yachts were playing sardines it was so crowded and the beach, which we could just see in the through the yachts, looked even worse! Not for us and so we headed on to the next anchorage. Luckily Elba has quite a few and so not too far. Marina di Campo is a huge sheltered bay and although there were hundreds of boats at anchor there was still room for 1 more - plus lots more as the evening went on!
On our first day in Elba we didn't actually make it ashore - not sure where the day went! But the next day we explored Marina do Campo and loved it. It's a really pretty and colourful town with lots of nice looking restaurants and shops. Very touristy but the tourists were attempting to cover every inch of the long beach when we were there and so weren't in our way. There is also a small fishing fleet and lots of fishermen around giving it a 'real' feel and very few cars (lots of bikes) making it feel very peaceful. Our project was to arrange an appointment to get my haircut which we originally thought was going to be impossible but we eventually found a hairdressers. We went in and the man who we thought was a customer threw his hands up in horror looking at my frizzy curls and said "cut - prego!" Clearly no appointment necessary! I'd decided to go short and we showed him a picture we'd found to which he said "si" - cut!' He set off with much Italian flair, scissors and comb waving in the air and as is the want of most hairdressers, it's much shorter than the photo and bears very little resemblance but I think I like it and it's definitely a huge improvement!
There's a small beach very close to where we're anchored and we thought we may be able to walk around the beautiful, wooded headland surrounding it and so we took the dinghy ashore. We were disappointed to find all of the woodland private but there was a path going inland and so we headed off on one of our mystery tours. It was a lovely walk a up the hill and then a long the coast to town - not what we expected but at least we got coffee and wifi ! In the afternoon we had another terrific thunder and lightening storm. They're spectacular and really clear the air.
Off to explore more of the island on the bus today................
Click here for the interactive map of our travels