Corsica

Corsica!

This is the huge ship we took to Corsica. Reminded me of Titanic. Most of the boat was loaded with cars. We bought tickets for Pullman, not knowing it was a seat not a bed. The seats were horribly uncomfortable, so, like all the other french, I ended up sleeping on the floor instead. (These french people can sleep anywhere; it's amazing where you find them sleeping).


Corsica has lovely hills and beautiful beaches. I really underestimated the size of Corsica (my first big mistake). Corsica is 10 times bigger than Singapore! I thought it was like any other french ville that can be finished in a day. I was so wrong.

We took a bus ride over to Saint Florent. The bus ride was horrible; the road was windy and the driver was... a typical french driver, approaching bends at top speed. I ended up car sick and my friend beside me was puking half the journey. But the beach there was lovely.

Clear water, surrounded by hills. On the way back, the driver kept making fun of me (in a friendly way), and I was surprised at how I was able to counter him, IN FRENCH! WOOOO!!!!!!!!!


Our fantastic driver. We were initially very hesitant about renting a car because 1) I am underaged to drive there, 2) Nelson only had never driven a left-hand drive car before. But we did it anyway. Nelson had problems with the car initially, trying to figure out the little buttons and getting used to driving on the right side. I had to keep screaming "tOO CLOSE TOO CLOSE!! Move to the left!!!!" initially.


Me reading the map. I did try to drive the car, and it wasn't that difficult. All went well, we came back to lyon in one piece. It was also cheaper renting a car than taking train/bus since we had 4 people sharing one car.


The journey to the north of Corsica- we were driving beside the sea, on cliffs. Tres beau.


Calvi beach. We were hanging out in the shady area outside one of the hotels there.

I got quite many "tu peux parler francais tres bien!" (you can speak french very well!) compliments in Corsica, which was very encouraging for someone who has been struggling with the language since coming here.

The next day, we drove to the south of Corsica.

We stopped by every now and then at beaches to rest, since our destination was 2 hours away.


Me, Yangfang, Yaochen, Nelson.


We passed by Vinyards.


Nice beach...


Another nice beach...

Finding our destination (plage de palombaggia) was really tough. There were, as usual, no street signs for it. I only saw a tiny "La Mer" sign and we followed it, and viola!


Eating lunch beside the sea. We dapao-ed food there to eat. I bought paella, which was yuuuummy and cheaper than in Spain.:D Wierd how I tasted Paella in France, not in Spain.


Drinking Corsican wine. The beach was, like all the other Corsican beaches, quiet and quite empty, unlike the beaches in Toulon and Nice. I weighed myself carrying a small bag in Corsica, and I was 55kg. AGH!!!!!!!! C'est pas vrai!!!!


Wind surfers.


On the road back..


We stopped by a vinyard for degustation.


Boy did we have a good time when the dude showed us a row of whisky bottles and said we could go ahead and try whatever we liked. There was also cheese for tasting.

What happened after was... insane. I really panicked when we got back and the car shop was closed.

I kept saying "Je veux retourner ma voiture" to everyone and people kept correcting me, saying "tu veux RENDRE la voiture." There are two different words for "return" in french.


Sun rise. We got up at 515am to rush down to the ship station to buy the tickets back to Nice once the office opened. We were very very lucky to get a FULL refund for our tickets for the ship we missed. We had to top up 14 euros for this ship to nice though.


Having lunch on the ship deck.
Some famous Corsican people include Alizée and Napoléon Bonaparte. But we didn't have time to visit Napoleon's birth place in Ajaccio.
The french also like to say Corsicans have an island mentality. But I am not sure what that means exactly.

Well, despite all the merde there, Corsica is one place I will definitely go back to one day (provided I still can speak french then, hahaha).