Corsican and Sardinian Reflections

Things I loved about our Corsican cycle tour:

• Getting my tongue around French phrases and actually being able to string sentences together in French and be understood by the locals;
• Cycling around the rugged coastline and overlooking the crystal waters 100's of metres below;
• The triumph of finally getting to the top of that hill or mountain knowing that we would have kilometres of downhill coasting to come with the wind in our hair;
• Discovering a gorgeous waterside restaurant in St Florent;
• Cycling through a mountainous desert and standing at the top of the mountains seeing just how far we had come;
• Staying in a remote mountain-top village called Piaggola in a B&B and sharing dinner with the owners and Belgian fellow travellers and having interesting conversations in broken English, Belgian, French and Italian;
• Meeting a Belgian man who himself had cycled Corsica 27 years earlier on his own carrying tents and all luggage on his bicycle;
• Stopping in small villages to eat picnic lunches of mortadella and cheese baguettes;
• Meeting French locals and English travellers in a funky bar in Ile Rousse and sharing Australian experiences with them;
• The friendly and helpful locals who were always greeting us with a warm smile and didn't mind our struggling broken attempt at the French language;
• Stopping off at roadside wineries and sampling and purchasing gorgeous Corsican muscats and rose';
  
• The welcoming smile on local's faces when we told them we were Australian and not British;
• Getting to see the sites up close and personal. Smell the smells of the villages, flora and fauna and really feeling like you are seeing the island at ground level without any barriers;
• Arriving at a destination after 30, 40 or 60kms of cycling to a long shower, afternoon nap and big big hearty dinner

And not so fun:

• Getting an awful heat rash after the first day of cycling due to sunscreen and sweat and feeling like a leper for 3 days afterwards;
• Numb bum - although our padded gel seat covers did work wonders;
• Undulating hills. Sometimes more up than down;
• Stifling heat in 2 star hotel rooms without air conditioning
• Last chance Saloon town of Ponte Leccia and our grumpy B&B owner;
• Bad transfer timings at the end of the tour, costing us up to €300 in taxis and car rental costs;
• Discovering the gorgeous port town of Bonifacio right at the end of the tour and not getting a chance to explore it further.

Things I loved about our time in Alghero, Sardinia:

• Arriving to discover that we had been upgraded to a nice new hotel as opposed to a B&B free of charge due to overbooking at the B&B, a welcome break after 5 days of gruelling cycling;
• Discovering the gorgeous medieval old town with it's labyrinth of cobbled laneways;
• Lazy on the stunning beach of Lazzaretto;
• Quaffing yummy local Sardinian red wine night after night;
• The restaurants and the gorgeous food and mine and Paul's competition of oneupmanship when it came to picking restaurants;
• Riding on the back of a Habana scooter;
• Catching up on sleep and relaxation;
• Stunning sunsets through ominous cloud formations;
• Friendly/helpful Italians;
• Cheese and salami for breakfast each day;
• Catching up on some reading;
• BBC World News and MTV in our hotel room - a godsend during the bad weather;
  
• Picking up leather jackets and demin jeans at bargain prices.

And not so fun:

• Only two days of sunshine for the duration of the 6 day stay;
• The stench of seaweed wafting through the town at high tide (rotten eggs!);
• Paying €35 to get our laundry done;
• Missing out on the boat tour to the renowned Neptunes Grotto due to bad weather and choppy seas;
• Wearing the same clothes four days in a row due to packing for summer weather as opposed to cooler autumn weather;
• Paying €1 to pee in unsanitary public toilets;
• The end of another summer holiday and facing the reality of the daily grind again and the post holiday blues that come with it.

Here's a link to more pics on my Flickr page: Corsica/Sardinia Holiday Snaps