Cinque Terre, Corsica and Sardinia

Our day in the Cinque Terre left much to be desired: Italian trains running on Italian time…. We were supposed to boat between villages, but the Mediterranean was too rough—we actually had 15-foot seas the night before! So we used the trains to get between villages. Our first train between Manarola and Vernazza made the Tokyo Subway look like a walk in the park. We were plastered against the door. Our second attempt was to go between Vernazza and Monterosso, but someone had hit an emergency switch on one train and it couldn’t be moved, which entirely blocked one track. Instead of an hour in Vernazza, we spent 3, gave up on Monterosso and left.

The Cinque Terre has been loved to death and Rick Steves is blamed for it. He discovered it and broadcast it to the world. In 1990 I hiked between the villages with our daughter Amy and her friend Julie. We saw almost no tourists, we had trouble finding bathrooms and restaurants and we did this in bathing suits, shorts and sneakers. Today the villages are filled with hikers with trekking poles, boots and backpacks (for the same trail we did in sneakers!) and busloads and boatloads of people. It’s the perfect example of an “over-touristed” place. But it is still beautiful and the following pictures show you why people go to this part of the world. The first 2 (note the crowds!) are in Manarola and the second two are from Vernazza.

Then we sailed to Corsica—part of France, in case you’ve forgotten your geography! We had a wonderful day in Corsica!  It is a sleepy island (4^th largest in the Mediterranean) for 9 months of the year with 300,000 residents. In the summer, however, the population grows to 3,000,000—mostly French. There are lovely sandy beaches, as opposed to the Rocky ones on the French Riviera. While most Corsicans appreciate the support they get from France, they consider their summer French visitors arrogant! No comment….

Over the centuries, Corsica has been controlled by about everyone. Following Romans and Greeks, the country was controlled by the French, Italians, and even the British for a brief period of time. During WWII it was occupied by the Germans and was the first French city to be liberated in September,1943 which allowed Americans to use a base here to launch attacks on the European mainland and northern Africa. During the German occupation, one of the lovely bays we saw was used by a French submarine to deliver much-needed supplies to the resistance movement.

We spent our time driving out to the Calanques—a beautiful, rocky coastal area on the west coast. The following 4 pictures give an overview of the area. Note the rock formation we found that reminded us of George Washington! On our way back to Nice in a couple weeks, we will sail by this area, so we will see it from both sides. Corsica is very mountainous, rising right up from the sea. They’re plagued by wildfires in the summer, so there are few big trees. The vegetation is pretty “scrubby” and in some places reminded us of Arizona.

We stopped in a small village on the way back to the Capital, Ajaccio, to visit a unique pair of churches: one “Latin” Catholic and one “Greek” Catholic. On Sunday morning, a single priest walks between them, celebrating one mass in French and one in ancient Greek.

Yesterday we visited Italian Sardinia. A larger island than Corsica, we only visited the northeast corner and missed the more rugged interior. Like Corsica, it is mountainous in the interior (with wildfires in the summer). Corsica’s mountains seemed more rugged, however, while Sardinia’s seemed more like jumbled piles of rounded rocks. Also like Corsica, Sardinia is home to many vacationers in the summer, although Sardinia looks more like “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”—lots of yachts and beautiful homes (most secluded from view). We heard many movie stars mentioned for having homes there, along with the royal family of Qatar, and Berlusconi (bet those parties are fun!) We even saw the hotel where Prince Charles and Diana honeymooned at 40K euros per night. 

As the 4 picture of Sardinia show, the coastline is rugged and beautiful, there are lots of mountainous rocky places, there are rugged islands offshore and the sunsets are spectacular.

On to Trapani, Sicily tomorrow and Malta the next two days….