We flew from Cologne to the town of Bastia, arriving in the early evening. Failing to procure a ride to the other side of the island as the sun went down we dined at a local pizzeria, sampled some of the cheap local red wine and retired to "Camp Carrefour" - our free-camping home for the evening in a vacant field beside the local Carrefour. We had a team of cows to watch over us for the night and actually slept pretty well. Who says you can't free camp in Europe? You can in Corsica at least! Next day we got a series of hitches across the island and eventually up the hill to the small town of Calenzana for a very late start to the day of hiking. Only 11 or 12 days and 180km (ish) to go. We fairly blitzed the timing specified in the guidebook and arrived at the first camp long before sun down for a well deserved beer, dinner and a bottle of coarse local red wine. Wine you say? In the mountains? Yep! This is hiking and camping Corsica-style - wine, beer and cheese are available enroute. Could be worse I suppose - certainly a bit different and a lot less of a logistical challenge than long distance hiking in NZ or the States, that's for sure.
Over the next 10 days we completed about 165km of the 180km trail, bowing out on the last day due to a forest fire, lack of motivation and desire to eat real food (ie not pasta) again. The weather was almost perfect - bright and the most of the time with only a hint of rain on 2 occasions. The terrain is amazingly varied for such a small island and in the middle, stunningly rugged. For most of the trail we had spectacular views of the coastline either to the east or the west. The more difficult days saw us conquer the dreaded Cirque de la Solitude (not a problem!) and follow rocky ridgelines and clamber up and down rocky faces for hour after hour, mile after mile. I was surprised how little trail work has ever been carried out on this track - it's mostly just a case of "let's walk that way, mark it with little red and white stripes on the rocks and trees and call it a trail" rather than actually building anything. There was some pretty serious scrambling and rock hopping involved over several of the harder days. It was fun and kept you awake, but physically tiring for sure - certainly much more interesting than walking on the hiking equivalent of a 4 lane highway though! On may of the days we had the chance to swim in some of the I have included some of the nicer photos below as a joint effort between Chris and me.
Having completed the bulk of the track we walked out to a small town and took a series of buses back to Bastia in the rain - we were so lucky with the weather and had almost no rain during the entire hike, with the torrential downpours holding off until we were on the bus back to the city. That night we free camped again - this time probably 200m from the main airport terminal (again, no worries) - and flew back to Stuttgart and took a rideshare back to Munich. Washing ourselves and our clothes properly and sleeping in real beds for the first time in 2 weeks was no small pleasure.
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| Stunning coastline on the western side of the island, not to far from the hike's starting point |
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| Getting ready to hit the trail - the start of the GR20 |
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| We gained elevation pretty quickly on the first day and got some panoramic views of the coastline. |
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| Red wine and pasta - camping in style! |
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| Sunset on the first evening in the mountains |
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| Rugged terrain on the second or third day |
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| Looking down into the Cirque de la Solitude - it's a rough piece of the trail |
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| Steep down into the Cirque |
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| And steep up - lucky we were able to skirt around the traffic jam coming downhill by creating our own route to the left of the official path |
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| Lake and pasture land - very different terrain than the rugged mountains we'd come over |
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| Playing with a cool, huge dog |
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| See what I mean about the trail being rugged and involving a lot of rock-hopping at times |
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| GR20 trail markers - we must have passed 100,000 of these over the 165km, they're everywhere! |
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| Taking a dip in clear cold meltwater |
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| Free camping again, this time in Ajaccio, (right next to the train station) midway through the hike on an ATM run for cash. Corsica is expensive, so we saved a bit of money on accommodation! |
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| Cool abandoned hotel in Vizzavona at the mid-point of the trail |
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| Typical county cabin undergoing a do-up |
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| Real wine in real glasses - now that's camping in style! |
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| The dividing range of Corsica - cloudy on one side, clear the other |
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| In the cloud |
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| Almost there, emerging from the clouds |
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| Big landscape for a small island |
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| Not far to go now, highest point on the second-to-last day |
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| Local fauna - these little guys were everywhere. This one was tamer than most and let me get really close. |
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| Out of the mountains, almost at the end |
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| The torrential rain as we were on our way out...good timing |
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| Arsonist Chris flaring off the last of the stove fuel so we can legally fly back to Germany |
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