Sweet Sweet Soveria

Bloggers, meet Soveria, one of the loveliest (tiniest) towns I've ever had the pleasure to stumble across.  As you may have gathered from the previous post, our camping trip around Corsica had been slightly derailed by our neglecting to pack the guide book we had bought and poured over months ago (hence our inability now, finally arriving in Corsica, to recall any details).  No matter, we picked up a lovely, if overpriced map on the ferry and set about making an intentionally vague plan-ish type thing. 

Vague is no exaggeration.  On our first night when we arrived at our campsite, after battling with Katy's tent in the dark for what seemed like hours before realising we were trying to assemble it inside out, we opened up our map.  Key points of interest were illustrated with cute little pictures and arrows pointing out the general geographical vicinity in which they could be found.  One such picture depicted a gorgeous little town nestled between the hills, overlooked by the towering snow-capped alps.  We took a guess at the name of this town based on the picture's proximity to the various small towns marked on the map, and made Soveria our morning destination on that fairly flimsy basis.

The trip into the interior took no time at all - Corsica is small - you could cover the length and breadth of it in a matter of days if you kept driving.  I can't speak for how easy it would be to navigate because we had lady SatNav pointing the way.  Still, when lady SatNav choked under the pressure of having to find her way (she did, often), we still managed to get where we were going, even if it did take a little cussing and backtracking in a vehicle that just wasn't built for anything less than a 65-point turn.

On our merry way to Soveria - town of postcard idyllic lore.

The cube on wheels.  The very definition of ugly-yet-practical.

The view from hill upon which Soveria perched.

Vitamin D deficient individual soaking up the sun.

Soveria from a distance.

Holy Holiday Batman - From Nice to the Corsican Alps

Yay!  And so begins an epic (ok, just a week really) journey around Corsica.  First, the ferry from Nice to Bastia, just south of the northern cape area of Corsica.  This is Nice.  Noice.

Our lunch - already we were sick of cheese and bread (wha?? I hear you say), but the sushi was cheap and filling, and we felt that this was a good opportunity to continue our country-by-country comparison of sub-par sushi.  Once you've had the real thing, there is no comparison.  Below, a couple of sushi snobs:

Poor Kate got quite ill on our second day in Corsica, and here was me just assuming it was a mutually-suffered hangover.  The night before this was spent playing a rambunctious game of Trivial Pursuit with Bec, Mark and Mark.  I can't remember who won ...  it wasn't me.  Sniff.  Anyway, this should have been my first sign that all was not well in Katy's tummy.

Au revoir Nice, au revoir to your sun is dazzling, your enourmous yachts, your beachside lunchers, your overpriced, but delicious pain au chocolat.  We went to get baked goods to wash down out questionable sushi, and the delightful woman behind the counter was handing out a beautiful rose with every purchase.  Only in France.

Corsica!  Our first day, having arrived uber exhausted at our campsite the night before, checked out our very basic map 8 euro (while our Lonely Planet Corsica still sat, expectantly, on my bedroom side table at home - damn damn damn), and decided to head inland to check out cute villages.  This was taken somewhere between San Damiano and Soveria.  Side note: Corsica feels much more Italian than French, and this is more often than not reflected in the place names, and definitely in the food.  Pizza everywhere.

In Cortes, after lunch.  Katy was in the throes of some hideous stomach complaint, so Stu and I left her in the shade with water while we went for a stroll.  Cortes = charming, but also, like about half the towns we drove through during our trip, it claims to the the ancient capital of Corsica.  To be fair, I can quite believe it would have made an awesome capital, perched high in the mountains, it would have been virtually inpenetrable, the invading hordes would've had a bastard of a time raping a pillaging after the knackering climb.

While driving, Stu kept asking me to read out the elevation on the sat nav.  He was fascinated.  It was pretty cool to see how quickly we went from sea level to Alp-worthy heights.  We went from sea level to over 2000 metres during the course of the morning, and the landscape was always changing.  If you want variety in your holiday, take the advice of a recent convert: Corsica is offensively good-looking.

Ch ch ch ch changes

Before I inundate this site with photo after photo of gorgeous Provencal countryside, stunning Corsican vistas, and cheese-stuffed individuals a little update on current working/living situation.  Bullet point for brevity:

1.  Edinburgh is hovering around the 10 degree daytime highs and pishing rain one should by now expect, yet is still disappointed to experience, in the summery month of June.  I am sitting in my chilly living room in uggs, hoodie and two blankets.  I can't say I'm surprised, but it's all the more difficult when you've just come back from sunny southern France.

2. The laundry hamper is too frighteningly enormous to even contemplate right now.  So I'm not.  I don't even have the space inside to dry everything since the drizzle outside eliminates the garden as an option.  I'm not losing sleep over it, but I do worry about what I'm going to be wearing in a few days time.  Do you think it's acceptable to rock up for work in pj bottoms and a modesty-saving apron?

3. Speaking of work, when I got back on Wednesday, I knew I'd have a fair bit to catch up on after 10 days away.  It's usually no biggie, just a couple of days of madness before things settle back down.  But it looks like the all shook up feeling will be staying around a while.  I've been asked to take on a new role for the next few months helping out the directors with the implementation of various projects.  Just general PA (ie stuff that nobody else can be bothered to do) duties, but a change is a change and I'm looking forward to doing something different.  However, this also means we need to find someone to cover my usual duties for the next few months, which in turn means trying to make sense of what I do in such a way that it can be explained to a newbie.  Don't get me wrong, it's not rocket science, but it's just another thing to do on top of the mounting list of tasks given to me by the Operations Director.

Will keep you posted.

4. Stu starts his new job this coming week, he's been out of work for about 5 weeks now, and although he's been keeping busy, he's also been going a little stir crazy spending so much time at home in front of a computer doing applications.  If it were me, I'd spend the majority of my day doing anything, ANYTHING else.  I would rather clean the toilet than surf job sites and call bloody recruitment agents.  But Stu's a machine, he's like the terminator of jobseekers.  He just keeps relentlessly pursuing -dismounts a motorcycle, whips off his aviators, bends down to the driver's window, shoving papers in some poor shmoe's face: 'Have you seen this CV?'.

Hopefully this new job won't actually be anything long term (pest control with Edinburgh City Council - how random can you get?!), because Stu is also one of those people who will continue to apply for jobs despite having only just taken on something new.  I have to admire him for it - until he gets exactly what he wants, he'll keep on trucking, peddling his wares to anyone who'll listen.  He's hoping to score a role within the Scottish goverment's agricultural officers department.  They have posts all over Scotland, but he's limited by little ol' me.  See, I refuse to consider living in Golspie.  Look it up on google maps, I believe that may clarify any uncertainty.  Colder, further north, golfing haven of 1650 people?  Dreamy.

Smooches,

Mez