Ending Up Anywhere

There were three possible campsites all in close proximity to Porto Vecchio at which we'd have been happy to spend our second full week in Corsica. All were rated four stars or above but, reading campers' comments, there were drawbacks at each: mosquitos at U Pirellu, noise from the fan at the restaurant at Bella Vista, and pitches that could be a considerable distance from the facilities block at La Chiappa . In the end La Chiappa won out for us due to its beachside location after we saw the considerable hill we'd have to climb to return to the other two after a day at the beach. La Chiappa would also be our first experience of a naturist campsite. Tony and I are used to being nude on the beach but this would be a week of no clothes at any time. At least I wouldn't have to do any washing. We arrived at reception at 10am and were relieved to find the lady serving us spoke very good English. She explained we'd need to wait a few minutes before someone wou...

We woke to our last full day at Camping Amurucciu as the sun was just rising over the Mediterranean. For the last week we have slept upstairs in the campervan with both crescent-shaped pop-top-roof windows open so that the light breeze blew over us during the night, the light of day awakening us early, at about 6.30 each morning. Tony was up first, as he was every morning so far, answering nature's call. When he returned from the toilet he put the kettle on to boil for coffee. I joined him to sit under the awning a couple of minutes later and we ate breakfast of pate spread on the remainder of a baguette that accompanied the previous evening's meal. An occasional fellow camper passed our pitch, right on the beach, for an early morning dip, but mostly the campsite was still asleep. After breakfast I filled our collapsible bucket with clean water from the tap next to the site owner's house. He was watering the garden with a hose and I tried not to make a s...

Our bikes were unlocked from the tree we attached them to five days beforehand when we decided we would spend the day on the beach to which we had walked for over an hour the previous day. It's not unheard of for us to take the bikes to France for a holiday and for us never to use them. Considering the Nice to Corsica ferry had charged us €70 for the extra length they added, I was pleased to be using them. Corsica didn't appear to be cycle friendly and our only option was to ride along the main road. For quite a significant portion there was a generous verge to cycle out of the way of the passing traffic, but at bridges and several places we had to share the road with the cars and lorries hurtling past. When we left the main road to take the route to the sea, after a time, we were blocked by the grounds of a campsite. Since there was no other road route around the perimeter there was not much choice but to push our bikes past the barriers and cycle through the s...

Though I would have put up with the gazebo our new campsite neighbours had erected far too close to Cleopatra's boot door, Tony wasn't having any of it and was determined to move. We had, through the addition of two hammocks and two washing lines strung between trees, and a five-metre wind break, created for ourselves one massive pitch so there was room to move the van. I resolved to continue reading my book in my hammock as Tony got exasperated by tent pegs that wouldn't come out of the ground. I had to say something when he started dismantling the wind break in a manner that said he wasn't planning on putting it back up again, to which he commented on the fact he was the one "doing everything." Clearly he was of the impression that an hour moving everything over by a few feet was a mutual decision and I wasn't pulling my weight. So I ended up helping, just so that everything we'd set up on our arrival four days previously was put back aga...

The beach in front of the Corsican campsite we chose for our first week could not be considered crowded by any means and for the first two days we walked barely five minutes to secure a spot well away from anyone else. The beach continued as far as the eye could see in both directions and so on days three and four we ventured further. Walking north along Corsica's eastern shore we passed barely anyone. In common with the section directly in front of the campsite there were no dwellings visible from the beach but, at one point, we stopped when we spied the ruin of a round stone tower peeping just above the trees. A path to one side allowed us to get closer and we found a perfectly-kept orchard on the other side of the sand dune. I'd never seen trees like it and as we approached them I saw the mottled cerise and yellow markings of nectarines. A few over-ripened fruit lay on the ground but odd ones and twos were still firmly fixed to branches. We picked one each to eat...

We've brought our usual camping larder with a few additions on our six-week French road trip. Not knowing how far away a supermarket might be, and carefully watching our spending on such a long holiday, it's reassuring to have a few basics and some ingredients with which you could make a complete meal. As it has turned out a large Leclerc supermarket is ten minutes walk from our first campsite and so it was no bother visiting to buy just the onion we added to what we'd already got to create last night's pasta with sun-dried tomatoes and chorizo. The onion was 33 cents, but of course that wasn't all we ended up buying. We decided on all visits to the shop we'd bring back beer just to be sure we don't run out. We keep a few bottles in the coolbox to enjoy after we come back from the beach every afternoon. There's nothing so satisfying as a cold beer on a hot day. Twelve bottles of beer, the onion and some green tea came to €6.30. Our grocer...

'Electricity cuisine no'. The nosey old man running the campsite came along in his golf buggy last night, stopped outside Cleopatra, pointed at our dinner cooking on the stove and tutted before uttering these three words. So he charges €3.50 per night for electricity but you can't use it to cook your food! Perhaps he believes you should do no more with the power than charge up your phone. Considering it costs about €5 to charge up a phone every day for a year that's really talking the mickey. So we just moved the electric stove from the table outside into the table inside, hid it from view with a box of wine, and continued cooking our pasta sauce. We have brought a gas stove with us in case we stay on a campsite without electricity, but I'm not going to use our gas when I've paid for an electric hook-up.