October 22Corsica.

[mettisse]

The Trip is an organised tour, lots of froading, good food, good accommodations all inclusive price, that’s about it really.
The excursion starts by meeting on the dockside at Toulon for a 6pm sail.
We had left home 6 days previous and had a 2day meander down to Provence where we spent 4 days languishing in the sun and enjoying just being there. The duchess is a dab hand at sorting out really good accommodation, and organising lovely meals out etc, this was, after all a late holiday.
So, on the ferry we go, nice evening meal ( ( ferry, cabin and meal in the price) to awaken in Bastia in Corsica. They ushered us off the ferry an hour early ( 6am) so a few kilometres down the road we stopped for coffee, tea, croisants at a boulangerie ( Bakers)
then onto the road book at about 8am. Well, off-road book if you like.A really interesting trail took us to lunch, this was held a what was once a convent, barbecued lamb, salad, cheese and as much wine as your crew can handle, then in the afternoon another 3/4 hours of driving and we arrived at our nights “digs” we were allocated a beautiful 1 bedroom bungalow, on the beach, yep I got a piccy, then a 5 minute drive to our evening meal. If you are a lover of fresh fish this would have been for you ( and me) absolutely enormous amounts of fresh cooked fish, gilthead bream,sea bass, red mullet, squid and others I don’t know served with salad and the obligatory French bread, and of course wine, red, rose and white, water is always on the table.
Now the odd thing is, theses beach bungalows are on a camping site, what’s odd about that? Well, it’s a nudist campsite and happily for us all their nudy customers had gone home, we had the whole site to ourselves ( the group, 40 cars)
I won’t offer a criticism as I’m a believer of freedom, but it saved the duchess from a “turn” I can tell you.So, in one day, from convent to nudist camp….. might be a story there…
the next couple of days saw us slowly making our way south with a night stop at Zonza then onto Bonifacia at the southernmost tip of the Island. breakfast lunch and evening meals are all included. Funny thing, you hardly see any of the other cars on the route but they always beat you to the parking at lunchtime. And there always plenty of grub.
On the final day a boat trip is arranged ( in the price) on a nice boat out to an island where you can swim and sunbathe, on the beach if you want, then for a late lunch everyone sits down for a feast of Boullabais , the famous fish stew/soup from Marseilles, served with toast and a special mayonnaise type dip, grated cheese and Rosé wine. comprised of whole ( no guts) fish, whole potatoes in a soup , for me this was heaven in a dish ( and glass) and quite literally as much as you can eat, incredibly generous servings,
This trip sounds like Billy Bunter’s ideal holiday, well yes, it’s like a gourmet tour, but nothing outrageous and those that didn’t want the fish were offered meatballs on spaghetti, looked good!
The duchess and I have done this trip about 5 times now, the cost? $1860 for two people, only the fuel and extra alcohol not included, the wine was included as were teas coffee etc . If you don’t have a lot of time this is a great tour, and one year they arranged our ferry so we could go a week early and meet them as they got off the ferry. The Company is the GRM, the people who used to put the “Croisiere Blanche and The Trophee Cevenol, they still organise the Mille Riviere
we had fun,
The car, I have a ‘94 Bruiser with all the kit, I took 2 spare wheels, not needed, an air compressor, Engel fridge, all the catering equipment that we keep in the car, in total from home we did just over 2200 miles, and used a lorry load of diesel.
My goal for next year is a trip to the Balkans with a German company I met in Bad Kissingen, drive down to Ancona in Italy, ferry to Greece, sounds like a good start eh?
best regards to all, Bill Westley

 

[Dave_S]

Looks good Bill, and I remember GRM from the "old days". What was the off roading like on this trip - technical or mostly conventional laning type stuff? Looks a lot of fun in any case...

 

[mettisse]

The froading was pretty tame, greenlaning with the odd one slung in to give it some seasoning and keep you on your toes, however, on one of the days there is a long arduous climb on and off road to what’s known as “ the shepherds houses, well, the route down, is a very long descent down steep rocky tracks , it switches back and forth with lots of steps, it keeps you well focused n the job in hand, no problem for a bruiser with a bit of a lift and 285 tyres, but the absolute winner is the scenery, the wonderful views, our trouble is we stop for a piccy then we end up having a brew, we must’ve ate a months worth of biscuits