To the lighthouse

When we checked in to our hotel and stood on the terrace the first thing we noticed was the lighthouse on the opposite side of the bay. It looks like a roughly drawn cartoon from a distance – there’s a square base, a rectangle tower and then a little triangle point on top – all in white outlined in a thick black line.

So today we walked to it.

The path at first was a confusing maze of little tracks that seemed to peter out and then start again without warning. We came close to permanently losing a child along this section. The track was running along a cliff above a beach; far too high above for comfort. I want across a tricky rocky bit first and then helped Cal across, I told him to walk up to a safer bit up ahead and turned to help Declan. Suddenly Cal gasped and I turned to find three-quarters of his body over the cliff – the path was eroded away and the hole had been hidden by a bush. Luckily the erosion had made an angled slope rather than a perpendicular gap so he was lying precariously but not as terrifying dangerously as it first appeared. All was well, but I think I Callum and I both gained a few grey hairs in those seconds.

Anyway safely back on firm land we went on and found lovely coves of deep, pellucid water. The path eventually joined on to a wider track that is used by cyclists and which made for much calmer walking. The local map had shown a simple u-shaped cove with the lighthouse on the other side. That wasn’t actually the case – there are several coves which the path follows round and a lot of going up and down over the ridges. It was a lovely walk though, surrounded by wildflowers, the buzzing of insects and flocks of small birds feeding on the insects. The views of the coast were amazing.

Corsica has a reputation as an unspoilt place. We’ve seen campers, walkers and treckers all over the place. There are many, many people in four-wheel drives or on trail bikes. Interestingly the French seem to favour Landrovers – I can hear my friend Rob sighing from here. This trail was mostly foot and the occasional bike. There were quite a few walkers on our trail but it was by no means busy, we’d meet another walker every thirty minutes or so.

The lighthouse itself was pretty when we arrived; but, as it is occupied, we could not have the picnic we’d planned there. Instead we walked about 30 minutes back down the trail to find a flat spot to eat our provisions.

The walk back was just as pretty as going and a bit faster as we didn’t need to work out where to go. We stopped just over half way in a little restaurant by a beach. This was one of those places in the middle of absolute nowhere where it’s difficult to work out how it makes ends meet. A couple of local beers while watching the waves was just what was needed to recover our energy for the final push back.