The other side of town, around from the main port, is very pretty, with a pleasant local beach and more up-market housing in restored old-style buildings. The large beach umbrellas on small balconies and entrance areas is an indication of the consistency of the hot summer sun.
The rest of the day was spent cleaning the inside of the boat (yuk!). So Greg took me out for a pizza and salad for dinner.
Tuesday morning I returned to the hairdresser to have my hair changed to its normal color. The language problems have finally been overcome and I'm no longer a totally platinum blond.
Geoff and Wendy Moule arrived in the afternoon so we are now enjoying sharing experiences with friends again. Relaxing on the boat in the glorious sunshine was their first request - not surprising as they have left an unusually cold Melbourne winter. The dinner request was for fresh fish so we dined at Le Floride, one of the marina restaurants. Like most seafood restaurants in Corsica the local catch of the day is priced by the weight and you can choose the actual fish you would like then select how you would like it cooked - grilled, pan-fried or baked. Our selections of rouget, sar and branzino were all excellent.
Wednesday was another perfect day, with bright blue sky and sufficient breeze to offset the heat of the sun. We drove up the coast over rugged mountains overlooking the Golfe de Sargone and the Golfe de Cargese, and along beautiful stretches of sandy beaches and turquoise sea that are in those very wide bays. We passed through charming holiday places such as Sargone and Cargese which have populations of about 250 and 980 respectively until the summer sun-worshippers move in. Greg stopped when he could for photo ops, but the road was fairly narrow and very winding, and there were too many beautiful scenes anyway.
We stopped for a picnic lunch at Cargese, which is a village that Greeks, who were escaping from invading Turks, first inhabited in the 1700's. They had asked the ruling Genoese for asylum and the community of 730 Greeks were granted that area of the coast. Today the Greek Orthodox Church is still as important to the village as the Roman Catholic one that stands on the opposite hill, but the community is so integrated that apparently the distant descendants are no longer distinguishable from other members of the community.
We also stopped at Piana and thanks to some guidelines from Lonely Planet we wandered the back streets to find the old original stone dwellings and some incredible views of Les Calanques, the incredible cliffs rising 400 metres above the sea in columns like candles. The high cliffs of red rock have been eroded over centuries by sea and wind to form extraordinary shapes and the area is now a World Heritage site. Greg's driving skills were needed yet again as cars stopped just anywhere along the very narrow road for people to try to capture on film the awesome images.
We finished up at Porto again, having already visited the town when we drove south from Calvi. After sorbets all round at one of the glaciers we returned to Piana to visit the Hotel les Roches Rouges, a glorious old hotel originally built in 1912 and is renowned for its dining room and terrace overlooking the spectacle of Les Callanques. It's very popular at sundown for people to enjoy sunset drinks but it would not have been fair to Greg to drive back to Ajaccio in the dark. So we were content with a 6.00 pm drink instead.
On the way home we stopped at Cargese again because we noticed the boucherie was open. To our amazement the butcher was a frail looking woman about 80 years old, but she was incredibly capable and strong when carving or chopping either left or right-handed. She recommended pork chops so they accompanied some of her spicy pork sausages as our barbecue dinner that night. We all remarked how tired we were just from taking in all of the spectacular images that day.
Yesterday was a perfect day to help Wendy and Geoff explore the rest of Ajaccio. This included finding the fish market where we purchased 4 whole durados for another barbecue dinner on board.
This morning we motored out of the Golfe d'Ajaccio with very calm water and only 4 knots of breeze. We enjoyed or breakfast on the way of freshly squeezed orange juice, fresh fruit salad and mini croissants (bought at the bakery at the marina) with home-made Corsican strawberry jam.
We travelled about 20 miles to Porto Pollo, on the northern coast of the Golfe du Valinco, another extremely wide bay. Dream Catcher III is on a fixed mooring not far from the shore, in about 27 metres of water where Geoff and Wendy had their first swim off the back of the boat. They loved the clear blue water at a perfect temperature for swimming, but Geoff was particularly impressed that he could shower on the swim platform to wash off the salt water.
Lunch in the cockpit included a range of meats, tomatoes, avocado, lettuce and cheeses with the baguettes bought this morning. The gorgonzola cheese was so creamy that the four of us demolished most of it with a bottle of Corsican white wine. Drinking wine at lunch time helps one know that we are on vacation!
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