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.