Category: Hiking

Continuing a series of blog posts written for the hikingcorte blog way back in 2010.

Sadly I never finished writing up the full account of the trip, including walking all the way to the west coast, being surprised while using the bathroom in a hotel in Evisa, and getting stranded at a tortoise sanctuary due to train strikes.

The end of the trip coincided with the Icelandic volcano eruption, which meant my planned flight back from Geneva was cancelled. I ended up stranded in Geneva for about a week, kindly accommodated by my good friend who was working on the LHC there, before the air and French rail strikes cleared enough for me to get home.

I do, however, still have the photos taken during the trip. Here they are with some brief explanations:

Continuing a series of blog posts written for the hikingcorte blog way back in 2010. Some of this information may be outdated!

This was the last day I had to explore the environs of Corte before heading on my extended hike to the west coast via the mare e mare Nord – out of several alternatives, I figures I could not visit Corte without also seeing the reputedly spectacular Restonica gorge.

My guide warned me that although breathtaking, during summer the accessibility of the gorge by car means it can get crowded with tourists unwilling to walk – traffic jams even develop, spanning the narrow road which weaves the 15km through the length of the gorge from Corte to the bergeries de Grotelle. But during early spring the trip up the gorge to the high mountain lakes, Melu and Capitellu, promised to be very worthwhile.

I was mesmerised by some photos I had seen of the lakes, seemingly sunk like craters in the high mountains and shrowded in mist. They looked rather mysterious and alluring, and should be very atmospheric if there are few other tourists about.

Continuing a series of blog posts written for the hikingcorte blog way back in 2010. Some of this information may be outdated!

As described in the last post, there are a whole bunch of good hikes you can do from your base at Corte. Combine this with Corte being the most well connected town in the region in terms of transport and the local hotels and facilities (as well as the fact that Corte is a proper town, interesting in its own right, unlike – for example – Vizzavona) makes it an excellent base for exploring the area.

I had two days before my big hike west over the Corsican watershead, one of which would be spent walking the Restonica valley and seeing lakes Melo and Capitello.

One my first day, however, I decided to break myself in with an “easy” walk. Based on some upside-down logic which escapes me now, for some reason I decided that a hike up to a local landmark, the Arch of Corte (or Arcu di u Scandulaghiu as you’ll sometimes see it). I also decided to do the walk with a full pack to test whether I was up to lugging all my stuff dozens of kilometers over the mountains. For some strange reason I failed to grasp that a vertical kilometer of ascent can hardly be described as an “easy start”.

Continuing a series of blog posts written for the hikingcorte blog way back in 2010. Some of the links are now unfortunately dead – you might try the wayback machine.

Before I had to decide whether I wanted to commit myself to an attempt to hike the western side of the Mare a Mare Nord from Corte to the west coast, I had two days in Corte to see the local sites and hike the local trails. Corte is a great base for walking trips, and based on my research – particularly the experience of these American guys, who walked the whole of the Nord in summer some years ago; these guys from the UK who give good summaries of the hikes they did in Calvi and Corte as part of an organised walking holiday; and corsica.forhikers.com, which contains lots of useful bits of information (albeit with much more geared towards the GR20) – I could happily spend a week there, walking a different route every day and not getting bored. Including short trips on the Michelline train to, for example, Vizzavona, I came up with a good number of tempting places to explore over these two days.