Tag: France

L’Île-Rousse to Corte – 12 October

This is being posted on Thursday, 14 October because we haven’t had internet the last two places we stayed.

Tuesday morning we woke up to find a large ferry in the bay outside our window. It would have been fun to see it arrive I would have liked to see how they docked it in what seems like a very small space.

The view from our balcony in L’Île-Rousse

We had coffee and croissants at the restaurant right across from our hotel. Then we hiked up to La Pietra, the point with a lighthouse that we can see from our balcony. It was a perfect Fall morning.

On the way to La Pietra

Tuesday night we stayed just outside the town of Corte. Corte is in the center north of Corsica. It was a change to drive up into the mountains. Corsica has some very high mountains. Along our drive we saw cows and goats on the road.

Goats on the way to Corté

A couple of weeks ago Duke was notified by Hotels.com that the place he had booked for us to stay in Corte was closing for the season and was cancelling our booking. He found another gite just down the road.

Since we couldn’t check in until 4:30 we went to the grocery store, got stuff for a picnic lunch and drove up Restonica valley just outside town. After lunch we took a hike up the canyon.

Our picnic lunch
The beginning of our hike.

After hiking we drove to our gite and checked in.

Our gite just outside Corté

The owner of this place is really nice although she doesn’t speak any English. My French is getting better although it is still at a fairly low level. But we managed to communicate.

For dinner we drove into town and found a very nice restaurant, where we shared salad, pasta, and pizza. It really hit the spot.

Salad
Pizza

Conchiglio to L’Île-Rousse

Navigating on Corsica is much easier than navigating in mainland France. Basically we just follow the coast. Today we drove south along the west coast. We left the Cap-Corse department and are now in Haute-Corse department on Corsica. As we drove south the surrounding became less rural. The roads were a bit wider and the scenery continued to be spectacular.

Corsican Coastal road
Another Corsican Coastal Road

Tonight we are in the Best Western Santa Maria Hotel in L’Île-Rouse. We are right on the ocean. The water is unbelievably blue and clear.

The view from our room

The hotel has both a beach and a pool. We tried them both out.

Duke swimming in the Mediterranean
Swimming in the hotel pool.

Around 7 we went for a walk to enjoy the sunset and check out restaurants.

L’Île-Rousse

We decided to eat at L’Épicure.

We started with mussels.

Then shared Pasta Del Mare and Fritto Misto di Mare. It was all fabulous, fresh and very filling.

Pasta del mare
Frito Misto di Mare

Toulouse, Aquitaine to Conchiglio, Corsica

This morning we set the alarm for 3:30 and ordered a 4:00 taxi because we had a 6:15 flight from Toulouse to Bastia, Corsica.

Arriving in Corsica at dawn

In Corsica we rented a car and drove into the town of Bastia. We parked, walked around a bit and had some breakfast at an outside table overlooking the square.

Breakfast in Bastia

If you look at a map of Corsica you will see a peninsula sticking out of the north end of the island. It’s about 25 miles long and it’s called Cap Corse. We drove almost all the way around Cap Corse on Sunday. It was a beautiful sunny day and we had glorious views of the Mediterranean. The scenery reminded me of California’s highway one. The road was narrow and there often wasn’t much of a guardrail.

The coast of Cap Corse
The road along the coast of Cap Corse

We are staying at a wonderful gite in a small town overlooking the coast. The owner of Maison Batista is friendly and welcoming. She recommended a place down the road for dinner and suggested we hike down to the beach. We didn’t go all the way to the beach but we did hike about half way down.

Maison Batista where we stayed
The grape vines (with grapes) outside our window
Hiking down towards the beach

We enjoyed the sunset from the clock square outside the restaurant where we planned to eat and then went inside and had a wonderful dinner.

Sunset in Canari
Dinner at Bon Clocher

Tour de Faure to Toulouse

The lovely gite we stayed in last night had its own little kitchen. Le Puits de Garival is out in the country but just down the road is a boulangerie so this morning we went down and picked up pastries to go with our morning coffee.

Boulangerie just down the road
Breakfast

We needed to return our rental car in Toulouse by three. So we drove on some beautiful backroads and managed to get to the rental car return place in central Toulouse by about 1:30. They were closed for lunch so we had coffee while we waited.

Coffee in Toulouse

Today was the pride parade in Toulouse so we saw lots of interesting people as we walked to our hotel and later as we walked around town exploring.

Pride parade in Toulouse
Pride Parade in Toulouse

We also walked along the Garonne.

Oldest bridge in Toulouse

Our plane to Corsica leaves at six am so we had a late afternoon snack pizza at five and are planning to turn in early.

We have now finished four weeks of our trip and two of our planned five car rentals. Although we will still be in France when we get to Corsica. This definitely feels like the completion of phase two of our trip.

Rocamadour to Tour de Faure

We had a busy and fun day Friday as we headed south. Before we even left our hotel room at Site Notre Dame in Rocamadour, Duke heard a whooshing sound outside. He looked out the window and saw a hot air balloon being filled in the valley below us. It took off and went right by our window.

Hot air being filled below Rocamadour
Hot air balloon outside our window

Rocamadour is built into a cliff. Near the bottom is the village. On top of that is the church and on top of that is the chateau. After breakfast we climbed up to the church and then to the chateau.

Rocamadour, a chateau on top of a church on top of a village.
Rocamadour, our hotel is the white stone building in the middle
Duke climbing to the church

From the top we took a different path back down.

La Porte du Figuier

Our drive south was on windy almost empty roads. We stopped for cheese and a baguette and then had a picnic next to the town hall in the little village of Saint-Martin-de-Vers.

Picnic
Picnic selfie

Just a couple of miles from our destination we did a hike along the Lot River. The Chemin de Halage de Ganil. The hike ended up being a little longer than we had planned because what looked like junctions on the map were actually places where the trail on the top of the cliff was directly above the trail at the bottom of the cliff! I’m pretty sure the trail along the river is an old tow path.

Hiking

Chemin de Halage

We are spending the night in Tour-de-Faure in a gîte in the country.

On the terrace of our gite at La Puits de Garival