# Other Places Around The World > France Travel Forum >  >  Corsica Bike Tour

## tim

After three airplanes, a bus trip through Paris, and 24 tiring hours, I arrived in Porticcio, Corsica from Richmond, Va. Consuming a fine dinner and some Corsican wine helped me sleep almost 12 hours to rejuvenate somewhat. The five star hotel where we're starting our trip is several stars above our normal habitations. Here some of the guest arrive in helicopters and motorcades, but usually we're staying at places where folks arrive by bike or normal auto.

Today was a rest day, but after assembling my bike and repairing minor equipment issues with duct tape, I took off up the mountain to Bastilica. One of the things one quickly notices is that the village signs all have the names written two ways, and often one way has been crossed out by the island's purists as in the photo below -

 

I passed this beautiful lake and was struck by its unusual color -

 

A little later I began to think I was in a WW II movie as I encountered dozens of vintage U. S. military vehicles filled with folks in old military garb, all of which flew American flags. When I found a restaurant jammed with these"soldiers," I stopped to see what was the occasion. I was told that 66 years ago today the American army liberated Corsica, the first part of France to be freed from the German occupation. It's apparently a big day on the island that is celebrated with much fanfare every year. Just maintaining those vehicles in mint condition is a huge chore, and I was significantly impressed by their appreciation of the American war effort even after so many years.

 

  


Today's pedalling - 42 miles with 4,000 feet of vertical.

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## tim

Today we rode north along the coast a bit before turning inland and quickly were treated to this view of the deck(right of photo) of our previous hotel with Ajaccio in the background -

 

A similar view as we pedalled higher up the mountain -

 

Heading ENE up through an amazing stand of eucalyptus trees lining both sides of the road, I've never seen such amazing bark on a tree, but my camera couldn't do it justice. There were also cork trees whose valuable bark had been harvested, giving them a naked appearance. Our ride today took us through the fabulous views in the mountains of central Corsica to the tiny village of Zicavo -

 

Mountain switchbacks are our bread and butter -

 



Just as I feared, our hotel this night deserved barely one star. Even though all bathrooms had bidets, some of us had to endure a communal toilet at the end of the hall. Go figure.... At least the food at dinner was delicious as it was plentiful. 

49 miles with 5,000 feet of vertical.

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## MIke R

good stuff Tim...keep on rockin mon ami

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## JEK

Tim,
Thanks for the travelogue! Looks like beautiful countryside, but too many hills :-)

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## andynap

Nice Tim. And here I thought Corsica was Italian. :)
The picture of the jeep has a car in it that I remember from many movies about WW II in France.

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## Purplejeep

Great photos Tim. Wish I could say that I envy you, but 42 miles in 4000 vertical feet? Maybe another time.  
Look forward to the rest of the trip!
PJ in Q

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## JEK

> Great photos Tim. Wish I could say that I envy you, but 42 miles in 4000 vertical feet? Maybe another time.  
> Look forward to the rest of the trip!
> PJ in Q



This is one tough island. Home to Napoleon and the 4th largest island in the Med.

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## Purplejeep

Oops, missed that last bit with 49 miles and 5000 vertical...still, maybe another day, but not any day soon!!

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## tim

Today's ride took us due north through the center of Corsica along a mountain ridge covered with gorgeous, huge pines in a protected forest. The bad news was that one of my riding pals went down hard on a rapid downhill descent leaving a lot of skin on the road and collecting some of the most amazing, purply bruises I've ever seen. Luckily our tour van was right behind him when he crashed and was able to give immediate medical attention. My brave friend got back on the "horse" to ride the final two hours with us to our next hotel in Corte.  This night's lodging was a much nicer hotel with plenty of porcelain for everyone. Also tonight's dinner of trout was the best fresh water fish I've ever eaten. Before the main dish we enjoyed huge salads and pasta to fuel tomorrow's ride. 

Forest critters roaming wild -

 

Typical Corsican mountain village -

 

Solitude -

 


52 miles, 5,300 feet of up.

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## tim

We rode some more through the forests today, and I witnessed a stupid tourist feeding some of the many feral pigs that we encounter along the roads. The pigs were almost in full attack mode as the tourists retreated rapidly towards their car.

Peacefully roaming pigs without tourists' influence -

 

Bustling tourist village of Porto -

 



Porto's streets were jammed with tourists on a Wednesday in September. The Corsican economy seems to be thriving. One in our party has read that only 3,000 Americans come here annually, so we've added .3% to that statistic.  With so few American visitors, we're rather an oddity on Corsica.  Sometimes we're stopped in restaurants by local folks who want to talk about our country, its culture, politics, etc.  I have to admit to really enjoying being in a place where almost no English is spoken anywhere.  Practically all the other tourists here are French with a few Germans sprinkled into the mix.  We've encountered a lot of young folks hiking the island and some other bike groups.

57 miles, 5,100 feet of vertical

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## tim

Andy,

You're right about Corsica's being Italian, but that was back even before your time, the Genoan period several centuries ago when thousands of towers like the one pictured below were built to guard the island's ports -

 







Even though today was billed as a rest day, some of us did a short ride up to Piana and back. Scenery was magnificent along the coast, but the tour busses were disgorging hundreds of tourists, so I didn't tarry.  One of the busses is shown in the below photo to give a reference to the enormous scale of the rock formations -

 


13 miles with 1,400 feet of vertical

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## Toni

Tim, Great reporting and photos, as usual... Thanks for sharing with us!

By the way, Gary wants to know if one of those goats is named, "Thunder".

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## tim

Toni,

Neither goat introduced himself, but there was an entire herd, so it's quite possible there was a "Thunder" in there.  :-)

Lest I give the wrong impression, except in the few touristy spots we visited, animals outnumbered autos on the roads in the mountains.  Corsica was the most peaceful place I've ever biked.

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## tim

Today we rode north along the coast enjoying spectacular views of the blue Meditarrean waters as well as the adjacent mountains. We had lunch at a hidden roadside resto with great views from its balcony and even greater food. Huge sandwiches with local bread, meats, cheezes and backyard veggies cost 5 Euros. 

 

Beautiful old roofless buildings with no signs of fire.  What happened to the roofs?  Your guess is as good as mine -

 

Unfortunately a rapidly moving virus(mal de Corse) has decimated half of our group, but a local pharmacist has filled them with drugs which we hope will get them quickly back on their pedals.  Some of my pals and I enjoyed a fabulous fish dinner of the local fish, dourade, and worred if mal de Corse was headed our way.

53 miles with 2,900 feet of up

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## tim

From the coast, over the mountains, and down to the coast we go. Today brought us just a little rain, but gale force wind gusts hit us throughout the day.  On several occasions as we lightweights fought to maintain control of our bikes, I was reminded of the time I got blown off my bike in St. B. If the winds caught us perfectly from behind, we could easily coast along at 16 mph without pedalling. Of course, they more often caught us from the side or the front....Yesterday we passed a dozen wind turbines, none of which were moving. There was much discussion as to how fast those rascals might be spinning in today's condisions. 

 

59 miles with 3,700 feet of up.

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## tim

We left Calvi today in light rain as we made our way north along the coast. The photo below was taken in the village of Nunzo after we pedalled out of the early morning rain.  Too bad there was no sun as this is one of the most photogenic villages on Corsica -

 



A large abandoned mining operation, which can be seen as the scar on the earth in the below photo, and its adjacent processing factory caused much discussion as we passed it just landward of the coast road. Some reserch showed it to be a former asbestos operation. Local scuttlebutt has it that the waste product from the operation was dumped into the sea, thereby turning the beaches gray in that area. The beaches I saw over there were indeed gray.... 

 

Stopping a couple of hours later for snacks proved to be a wise move as it started raining buckets and continued to do so. Several of us holed up in a tiny restaurant in the small village of Minervio while our tour van ferried groups of riders over to tonight's hotel just a couple of miles from Bastia, one of Corsica's largest cities. Tomorrow is a rest day, and I'm looking forward to doing some shopping there. 

25 paltry miles with 1,500 feet of climbing before the big rains

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## tim

Well, so much for shopping this morning. The illness that hit my companions has found its way into my old body, and the last thing I want is to be more than fifty feet away from a familiar toilet.    Thank goodness today was a rest day, so I didn't have to deal with this problem on the road. Mal de Corse, YUK!

As bad as I felt I still didn't want to exchange beds with the folks in this hotel -

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## tim

Leaving on this beautiful clear morning, we pedalled through Bastia, Corsica's largest town. The traffic presented a challenge but not for long as we quickly made our way out of town to a small coastal road headed north. Within an hour or so we were back in the mountains. Seeing the island of Elba reminded us of how close we are to Italy. It appears that a day of rest cured my "mal de Corse."

Neatest old house award -

 

Tallest steeple award -

 

Coolest dualest waterfall award -

 



66 miles with 5,200 feet of up

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## tim

Back through the mountains today to the university town of Corte as we work on our figure 8 around Corsica. Today was another wonderfully clear day for photos and biking.

Our guides stop to provide the group with water and nourishment -

 

At this mid-day stop, on the far right note my young British friend who has seven decades of experience.  A very nice guy, he had one really obnoxious fault in that he could climb past me and several others like we were sitting still -

 
Share the road -

 



53 miles with 4,800 feet of climbing

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## nnoska

Tim, i have been enjoying your posts daily, i have wanted to go to corsica, and maybe this will prompt a trip, thanks again erik

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## tim

Erik,

I'm glad you're enjoying the reports.  Corsica is a unique part of France, and I expect you'd enjoy the hiking especially.  I've got a few more days of reports and photos I'm trying to post to finish the trip.  I would have done the reports while over there except I didn't take my computer to deal with the photos.

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## tim

I loved this old one lane bridge that was on a main artery(National Route).  There were no weight restrictions, so bicycles and large trucks alike were crossing, one at a time of course -

 

Since this was a big day on the bikes for all of us, it was not a good day for tire problems, but that was exactly what happened to one of my riding pals.  We needed an hour, a new tire, and four tubes(some defective) to fix his blow out.  The scenery was again breathtaking as we travelled southeast to the seside tourist town of Solenzara.

 

72 miles and 6,000 feet of climbing

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## tim

I'm not obsessed with the dead, but one couldn't help but take note of the thousands of elaborate mausoleums located throughout the island, some in formal cemeteries like the ones below and others just plopped along the sides of the roads.  From the looks of some of the houses in the country, many Corsicans spend more on their habitation after death than when alive -

 

There was a brief article in the local paper stating that a Mercedes 4 x 4 was blown up on the street the day before we arrived in Porto Vecchio.  Since the news item was so brief, I assumed it was a not uncommon occurrence or local authorities were trying to keep the incident quiet.  We encountered no violence or rude folks anywhere during our travels, but that doesn't mean they weren't around.

After yesterday's long day in the saddle, some of us took the short route to Porto Vecchio and logged only 30 miles with 1,500 feet of vertical.

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## JEK

T,
Great photography of a new place to me. Sounds like quite a rolling trip!
J

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## tim

We're headed back across the mountains from the east coast to the west coast city of Propriano.  The morning brought fabulous weather for biking, and that was part of our problem.  Some of my companions enjoying the temps -

 

A beautiful lake on a beautiful morning -

 

I had the pleasure of becoming friends and riding companion with two really nice guys from the west coast.  Here I am with Ron in the midst of the grafitti revolution -

 

My friend Riley as we departed a restaurant from a too long lunch stop -

 

Isn't that a pretty little cloud on that mountain?  NOT!!!!@

 

Shortly after we left our enjoyable lunch stop, the bottom fell out of that pretty little cloud and continued for the rest of the day.  Since the weather was so perfect this morning, we left all our rain gear and warm clothes in the van, thereby quickly causing the three of us to lose body heat on the 1.5 hour descent we endured.  My hands were cramped on the brakes to keep the pads dry and the bike speed down. My bike was shaking as I shivered.  I was never so happy to see a road head back up a hill in my life.  Descending means cold and ascending means warmth on a bicycle.  I jumped out of the saddle and pedalled as hard as I could up that hill to bring warmth back to my freezing body.  We made it all the way back in the pouring rain to within ten miles of our evening's destination before calling the van(and calling it quits) for the day.

5,700 feet of climbing and 51 miles before surrendering to the weather.

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## tim

After yesterday's ordeal in the rain, almost everyone in our group decided to take a rest day today, and some of us wandered around Propriano.

Typical Corsican streetside restaurant -

 

Local folks enjoying their morning caf

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## andynap

I know Corsica is off the main radar but is there enough to do for a regular vacation?

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## tim

Andy,

Travelling to Corsica is taxing, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as a destination vacation.  At around 5,000 square miles, it's much larger than St. Barth, but IMHO it lacks the glamour and the beaches that make St. Barth special.  Climate is different as well; there's even a ski facility in the higher elevations.  Due to the expanse of beautiful, unspoiled countryside, hiking and biking are spectacular on Corsica.  The lack of traffic on the roads we travelled was a special treat, one to which many of us are unaccustomed.

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## tim

No discussion of Corsica could possibly be complete without a photo of the character below and some mention of his place in society.  We saw boar hunters with their dogs frequently on the mountain roads.  We saw boar skins drying on fence posts in the country.  One night our group(except for me and the other fish eaters) was served boar stew for dinner.  Boar apparently is an acquired taste; my fish was much coveted by the carnivores -



Today was our final day on the bikes, and we pushed hard over the hills back up the coast to the luxurious Sofitel in Porticcio to beat rain that never materialized.  Bikes disassembled and repacked in their shipping boxes, my riding companions and I sat down to enjoy our last dinner together.  We drank and reminisced about the journey, feeling good about our accomplishment,  feeling sad that we'd never again be together with this combination of friends, and grateful that we all survived without serious injury.

Final day's tally, 33 miles with 2,500 feet of up.

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## tim

4:45 am - Rise and Shine

Van to airport

Check bags and bike.  Pay extra for bike.

Flight to Orly.

Claim bags and bike.

Haul gear to metro station.  Metro workers on strike.

Haul gear to bus stop.  

Bus to CDG.

Haul gear to U.S. Air counter.  Pay extra for bike.

Flight to Philly.

Claim bag and bike for customs.

Recheck bag and bike.

Plane to Richmond.

Claim bag and bike.

Shuttle to parking lot.

3:00 am(Corsican time) Arrive home.

The bike riding is a breeze compared to the travel back and forth to/from Corsica.  I don't know if I'll go on another European bike trip, but I would definitely choose an easier travel location if I do.

I'll leave this extra long report with one final thought and photo.  We all have a tendency from time to time to whine about life's trivial aggravations(see above), but many of our fathers and their generation made the ultimate sacrifice so that we can enjoy freedom and the liberties we all take for granted.  In almost every village, no matter how small, that we visited in Corsica, there's a statue in remembrance of those local men and women who died fighting for freedom.  These memorials serve as strong reminders to help us keep our privileged lives in perspective -

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Tim,
Thanks for a superb day-by-day report and a fitting finale. Although I've never visited Corsica, I feel as if, through you, I've been there.
Julia

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## onebigdawg53

> Tim,
> Thanks for a superb day-by-day report and a fitting finale. Although I've never visited Corsica, I feel as if, through you, I've been there.
> Julia



Julia, it's quite plausible that you were there in a previous life lol 
Have a great weekend.  Sailing tomorrow?  Sister-in-law's sailboat still under repair after the lightning strike - maybe we'll be back on the sound with them next summer and look you up.

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No sailing today George (soccer games!) but maybe tomorrow. It's supposed to be a spectacular day. This is the best time of year because there are few boats out. Now sailing around Corsica---that would really be something.

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## tim

Julia,

There were right many charter boats anchored in coves around the island.  I did some sailing around Majorca in 1990, but the conditions were miserable, and I think that's true of Corsica area as well.  There was either no wind or a gale, nothing in between.

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## MIke R

> there's even a ski facility in the higher elevations.  Due to the expanse of beautiful, unspoiled countryside, hiking and biking are spectacular on Corsica.  The lack of traffic on the roads we travelled was a special treat.





hmmmmmm...that all sure sounds good to me....

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## madison1

ITs an incredible place.  In response to prior posts, we were there in August.  There was plenty to do and we found the resort towns to be every bit as sexy and seductive as what everyone loves about SBH.  Porto Vechhio and Bonafacio in particular.   There are boat trips, great beaches, fine dining.  Sound like any place else you know or like.....

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## cassidain

Tim, I've had an interest for years in going to Corse but have never made it.  Principally because, as you indicated, it's a real pain in the *ss getting there, and I categorically refuse making connection in Paris...quel bordel! The French are not particularly welcome on Corse (despite the fact that it's a "French" island), but it's sounds like the welcome for your group of Yanks and Brits was warm.  Enjoyed the reports and photos!

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