Vendettas, nuraghi and the marches: Crazy way to Cap Corse

We have adventures. We decided, on the advice of others not to take our motorhome up to the remote Cap Corse in the north of Corsica where roads are reputed to be narrow and precipitous. In hindsight, we might have. We are used to driving on roads much narrower than this ended up being, but we listened, and our eventual experience, itself, proved to be an adventure.

We'd heard that a bus left somewhere in Central downtown Bastia for Cap Corse, at noon. We asked everywhere as to where the bus might depart: the Gare, the Tourist Information, tourist bus drivers, local bus drivers. No one knew for sure. Some days here, some said. Some days there.

Buses in Bastia it seems leave like the trains: whimsically, arbitrarily, if and when they choose. There are no platforms, no Departures or Arrivals marked. No Conductors, no signs. The system stems from habit and persistence. If you mostly depart from this spot then most people will expect you to leave from this spot most of the time.

Sometimes this system doesn't work. Like today. To Cap Corse. Even international tour bus drivers from across the waters were more than happy to help us, they just didn't have a clue what to advise, poor dears.

We wandered between three possible sectors until 10 minutes after the hour that our bus was scheduled to depart and we'd given up hope and were ready to wander off, when, out of nowhere, a little van drove up onto the kerb where we are standing despondent, shouldered us into his vehicle while shoving some of the passengers onto their bottoms into the back of the van (with, I should add: Peter, ineffectually saying: "No-no-no!" his hands up in surrender!) and off we went: a wee mini van loaded to its shabby thin cardboard lining with eight high school students going lord alone knows where, with three tourists --us-- not having even a clue where we were headed, for how long, or if we would ever return, our Corsican driver hijacking us off to the hills with hurricane effervescence. I imagined a vendetta payback from some mystic past misdeed, for the entire trip.

Even days later, we have no clue as to how this driver knew we needed to go to Cap Corse. Nor will we ever know. A speed fiend, he was. We had read about them. He took absolutely no notice of white lines on roads, and sliced kilometers off the journey ignoring all of them, straight-shooting through all the curves. A straight line up the mountains he drove, then a jagged path swerving around oncoming vehicles no matter the side, passing vehicles blindly on corners even when we were exposed to a cliff edge. No road rules. None. Anarchy reigned. I said a loud prayer to the good gods of Corsica and gave myself up to their heavens. Bec, held off till the tail end of the trip, when, prone to motion sickness, she said: I feel like throwing up. We all did. Luckily, once we were on solid ground that sensation soon passed.

We had no time to enjoy the scenery on the way up, but, before we headed back (with the sketchiest notion of when the bus might depart) -- we had lunch and a Pietra in a tiny little bay village with a wee marina dotted with some large expensive yachts and many smaller shabby fishing boats and took a long walk in the sun with one eye on the bus stop.

On the way down, soothed sufficiently, we noticed the magical bays and inlets topped with ancient towers. These look like lighthouses, but they are not. They are towers. Or torre. They look like ancient brochs of Scotland, or the nuraghi we hope to see in Sardinia. They look fortified, as though they could withstand dangerous times from transient marauders. They are also strong enough that, in peaceful times, they might be used as storage, to stack excess grain or gluts of other good-weather foodstuffs. Not much is known of the folk who built the towers, or torres. The folk, some believe, are called the Torreens (utterly unimaginative of these historians, I fear) and they evidently were on this island well before the Phoenicians (who were from near modern day Lebanon) and the Carthiginians (who are from the Tunis coast of Africa).

As well, we noticed the Maquis: the low scrubby vegetation that covers most of Cap Corse (in lieu of the timber that has been depleted long since). Just like the growth we noticed last year in the Pyrenneess this shrubbery that covers the land is perfumed with bunches of wild rosemary and fennel, myrtle and broom. It is spectacular now in the Spring: all pink and yellow, white and sage green.

But, oddly, the smell of Corsica while we are here comes from cultivated roses. Everywhere roses are in bloom. Rude flamboyant red ones; blousy and bursting out of pots, and the hard crusty ground, while soft pink and white blossoms sprout in the dryest of dry areas. Such a dichotomy, this lush moist fragrance wafting in this hot dry climate.

oooOOOooo