Continuing a series of blog posts written for the hikingcorte blog way back in 2010. This post describes my journey by train all the way to Corsica.
I set off for Corsica on the morning (early morning) of April 8th. I’d been a bit nervous about the UK rail strikes affecting the eurostar, but they’d been put on hold and now my only concern was the weather and my inevitable paranoia about losing my passport before I’d even set off.
Eurostar is brilliant.
Considering I was paying less than what a return train ticket to London costs, the service in general is great and they treat you really well. As I entered the very impressive restored St. Pancras, I was a little alarmed to see lots of posters warning about a French rail strike for, well, the previous day. I didn’t worry too much about it, but asked the conductor on the train. He turned out to be a really nice guy, and promised he would phone ahead for me once we left the chunnel. True to his word, as we emerged in France, he came and found me and told me the strike had cancelled my TGV to Nice! All my ticket-finding efforts seemed to have ended in failure – but even though my ticket to Nice wasn’t part of the eurostar ticket (and so really had nothing to do with them), and I didn’t even possess the ticket yet (I just had a flimsy print-out with a number for collection when I got to Paris), he wrote me a special note so I could get a later train. He wished me luck, and suggested I could maybe “see some of the city” in the few more hours I had.
Pulling into Gare de Nord – You can just see Sacre Coeur over the tower blocks
I arrived at Gare de Nord, picked up all my train tickets for the journey with no problem and made my way to Gare de Lyon as fast as I could to check out the situtation for myself. The conductor turned out to be exactly right: I would have to wait until 5pm, but could still get a TGV first class to Nice. I dumped my pack, and decided to go for a wander! I was surprised how far I got…
I had a rapid meal, and an even more rapid reintroduction to speaking French (though I seemed to get on the waiter’s good side by the end – he even wished me Bon Voyage, incredibly). I haven’t even been to France for the last four years, and the last time I had to attempt French was in Brussels three years ago, so things were slow to get going.
After this I wandered aimlessly for a while and soon came upon Notre Dame, which is frankly quite hard to miss, its two halves looking like some chimeric combination of the good and evil temples from Black and White. I’m always amazed that two of the most recognisable symbols of modern Paris, this and the Eiffel tower, were not much loved in their day and could have been demolished. What was next, the Arc de Triumph?
In front of Notre Dame there was, as always, thousands of tourists, and (as always) some guy putting on a show and busking. I’ve seen a lot of city buskers, and you usually know what to expect – the oddest I’d seen up to this point were a bunch of magicians who then turned out to be born-again Christians in Rab Town, Croatia (the audience weren’t really convinced).
This guy was in a class of his own though – I’m still not quite sure what I witnessed. His act seemed to consist of the dog bringing him juggling balls – but the dog always disobeyed and wouldn’t let go of the things. I’m not sure if this was part of the performance, and the French speakers in the audience seemed essentially as confused as me. It culminated in him sort of wrestling his dog to the ground, to the audience’s palpable discomfort.
Apart from this, the most entertaining part was when a small girl came up to put some change into his hat, at which point he shouted “ATTACK!” to the dog. Didn’t get many tips after that…
I kept walking and reached the Pont Neuf and the Samaritaine department store which I’ve always used to navigate by when I’ve visited the city before.
I got back to the Gare de Lyon with plenty of time, and I thought I would kill half an hour by dawdling around the station. This turned out to be a mistake: after my relaxing day, I hadn’t figured that because over half the TGVs were cancelled, and now everybody’s tickets were valid on all the TGVs, all the trains to the South would be hideously crowded.
This occurred to me far too late as I saw mobs of people heading to my platform. People were getting quite pushy: as I half ran down the length of the train, I saw that the pressure of people trying to cram in had pushed some poor old bloke on crutches down the (pretty considerable) step into the body of the train. People were helping him up, but clearly we were going to struggle to get a comfortable ride.
I squeezed into first class, and it soon became clear that it was going to be very hard to get somewhere to sit. I’d been travelling for over 12 hours at this point, and I wasn’t relishing the thought of a six hour train journey standing up or sitting in a luggage rack (been there, done that). I grabbed a random empty seat, said Bonjour to the people around my table, and sunk myself into some Nabokov, aware that if somebody came on with a reservation for my seat I would have to move, and working on the theory that people are loath to move somebody absorbed in a book…
By the time the train moved off people were jammed into every vestibule, sitting in the luggage racks, and I still had my seat. After an hour I relaxed and attempted to snack. Nobody checked tickets, and I think ticketing was basically suspended. By some amazing fortune I kept that seat for the duration. The train reached Avignon, the sky darkened, I ate a very dubious Croque Monsier from the (very friendly!) buffet, and the train slowly emptied. By the time we reached the Cote d’azure…
…the train was effectively empty. I reached Nice at about midnight, making my overland adventure around a 19 hour trip. The city was quiet and rather eery. My hotel (the lovely Hotel Rex), despite me being 5 hours late, had left me a note with the entry code. In my exhausted state I actually couldn’t get the code to work, and stood at the door for a good two minutes of sheer despair until some other guests came back from their night out, and, in a rather bewildered state, let me in.
I had to leave the Rex early in the morning to catch my booked ferry, so I didn’t actually see any of the staff. At 6am I left them a €50 bill and an explanatory note on the main desk and made my way out into the dawn…
I made the boat without too much difficulty, and felt a tremendous sense that the worst was over as we powered away from Nice…
The boat trip was incredibly windy. I sat on deck (I hate travelling inside on boats), drank coffee, and tried to keep hold of my guide book. A French lady almost lost her bank statement overboard, but her husband pounced on it. At one point I gingerly made my way to the observation deck at the front of the boat, and genuinely thought that if I didn’t keep a tight grip on the rail I might be lifted off the deck (I don’t weigh much and my clothes were billowing like sails). The boat was full of French school kids, presumably going to a football tournament – they were all in kit, and arranged into at least half a dozen teams. They tried to play on the deck but it was clearly too windy; so they mostly amused themselves by feeding small bits of paper into the wind, and watching them tumble endlessly behind the ship amid the black exhaust of the funnel. You certainly couldn’t feel sea sick with so much fresh air.
L’ile Rousse is a funny place – my guidebook insists that it “doesn’t convince as a Corsican town” which I suppose is true, but since it was my first exposure to Corsican towns I didn’t really have anything to compare it to and still it seemed odd. Maybe it is more like a French riviera town in season, when apparently the place brims with tourists; when I was there it reminded me a little of Paignton near where I grew up, a town still suffering from the loss of the holidaymakers it drew in its Georgian hayday. L’ile Rousse is cleaner, though, and better kept. A single group of British tourists wandered along the long, sandy beach and the toy-like rails running parallel which form this stretch of the narrow guage railway. Most of the restaurants and bars were open, although customers seemed to be few – I took this as a good omen, as one of the things I was worried about was the wholesale closure of restaurants and hotels during my trek.
I had some lunch in L’ile Rousse, on a terrace overlooking this statue of Corsican national hero (not Napoleon), Pasquale Paoli.
Poali founded L’ile Rousse to compete with the Genoese stronghold of Calvi just a few miles up the coast. It’s surprising the town’s so bland considering its illustrious history. After my meal I lay on the beach for a while, and briefly braved the sea – it was freezing but wonderfully clear – and then made my way to the train station to catch the replacement bus (improvement works on the railway were delayed into the spring) to Corte.
I arrived in Corte, pulled myself up the hill into the town, and checked into the Hotel de la Paix where I had a booking for three nights – plenty of time to explore the surroundings.
Corte is a fairly tiny place: one long street really, stretching from the Corsican University at the bottom of town up to some grander buildings to the north, including the de la Paix. At the Southern end of town is the main square where there are some good restaurants, and banks, bars and food shops line the main street. Some bits of the old town, and the high citadel, rise to the west of the main street; the main road to Ponte Lecchia and Vizzavonna passes the town to the East. Tall mountains rise all around, especially to the West, and you can see the Restonica and Tavignano vallies converge on the town, their respective rivers meeting.
I wasn’t really sure where to stay in Corte, and plumped for the Paix even though it wasn’t hugely recommended in the Rough guide. These guys, who walked the whole mare e mare Nord a few years ago, stayed at the Hotel du Nord and reported it was a “noisy dump” – they seemed to talk sense, so I decided to give that one a miss. Actually the Nord looked fine when I got there, but I can see why it could get noisy in summer – even when I was there and most of the patrons were locals, (very) small-scale nightclubs pumped out music until the small hours at the weekend. At the other end of the scale the de la Paix was very quiet (as the name suggests), and I actually think I was the only person on my floor for some of the nights I was there. Based on the information at tripadvisor, I decided to book a “superior” room for €5 more, and wasn’t disappointed: these rooms, at least, had obviously been refurbished recently, and mine had quite a big bathroom, TV and balcony, things that I’m really not all the used to when travelling around. The building itself has seen better days, but it has quite a charm to it and I wonder about its history: its one of the tallest buildings in Corte, built like a six story tenement rising up from the small river that separates the town from the main road. The hotel does have a restaurant and a funny little bar, although both remained completely deserted while I was there. The reception is manned until around 9 each night, but the door is open 24hrs and I’m sure you could rouse somebody later on if you had to. English isn’t really spoken, but I didn’t have too many problems even with my limited French. For my purposes it was a great and economical place to stay, and I’d certainly recommend it, although I’m guessing it gets full in season. They only take cash (or cheques, I guess), but that’s not a problem as Corte is full of ATMs.
As early evening rolled around I wandered out into the town to have a look around and get something to eat. The area around the citadel is pleasant to stroll around, although pretty steep, and in the gathering dusk I located the beginning of the trail leading up the Tavignano valley: it’s marked by a large notice board dominated by signs warning against forest fires (there was actually a risk level notice which I assumed referred to danger of bad weather but was solely concerned with risk of fires), just above the entrance to the citadel. The smaller, less well marked path for the Arch of Corte also leaves from here. Dropping back into town, I noticed many of the restaurants still seemed to be shut, including the recommended U Museu. Without holding out too much hope I made my way to the Paglia Orba, also recommended by the guide. It has a rather nice terrace, but this was deserted and the place was pretty dark and deserted – I only gave the door a half-hearted push on the offchance, but to my surprise it opened and I was immediately greeted by the very friendly proprieter. Because I travel alone very often, I usually end up eating on my own, which I’m quite comfortable with: as long as you have a book, and the establishment is sufficiently informal for it to feel natural to read between courses, I tend to feel self-contained and content – but here I was the only customer and I was afraid it would be awkward. I am still amazed at the remarkable job the owner did of making me feel at ease. He didn’t speak much English, but fortunately some of the rust had fallen off my neglected French in the last two days, and we discussed the menu without too much difficulty.
Here came the second problem: I often got the impression that not eating meat in Corsica is often regarded as something very strange, odd even to associate with foreigners visiting the island. Again, the owner took it in his stride, and despite the fact there was nothing without meat on the menu, got his chef to rustle me up a great pasta dish right there. We chatted for a while, about the weather in mountains and where it was good to walk; he warned me of the dangers of the April snow, which is was to learn of later first hand and for which I was rather unprepared; and he complained of the rain, which he thought had increased in recent years. I learnt that during the winter even Corte town itself was buried in deep drifts of snow, even though the town is at an altitude of less than 500m. He told me that business was very slow at the moment, because the students were away from the university, but it would pick up when they returned. It was a very pleasant way to spend my first evening in Corsica, and a great introduction to the friendliness and openness of the locals, even in areas which see a lot of tourists during the high season. If you’re in Corte definitely go and eat at the Paglia Orba, tucked just behind the main square – it was the best place I ate while in town, and comes highly recommended.
I returned to the de la Paix and slept very soundly indeed. All in all my overland trek had been worth it, although those few extra hours in Paris made it feel much more continuous and epic than it otherwise would have been. Because I arrived in Nice at midnight rather than 8pm, getting into my hotel and getting something to eat became a challenge, and my night’s sleep was cut short. But is travelling overland more subject to these kinds of difficult to forsee delays than air travel? In the absence of any systematic data, I’d have to say the probability of delay is around the same (somewhat depending on where you are in the world). But in terms of consequences I’d have to say that delays and cancellations you experience in air travel tends to impact your travel plans more profoundly. If you miss your plane or it is cancelled, even once you go through the inevitable bureaucratic labyrinth the budget airlines will put you through to get new tickets, you’ll be lucky to arrive at your destination on the same day. Even if you manage this, when you arrive you likely won’t be all that close to the local population centre, near to places where you can quickly arrange food and accommodation for your first night – some smaller airports may not even have public transport operating if you arrive at a less sociable hour than you were expecting (this is especially true of Corsica). I think it’s fair to say one of the benefits of travelling overland – from city centre to city centre – is that if something does go wrong and you get stranded somewhere, at least you’ll be in the middle of civilization and likely to be able to fulfill your basic needs without turning into Tom Hanks in Terminal. Comparing my experiences getting to Corsica and my attempts to fly home from Geneva at the end of my holiday, overland travel seems to win this one.