Camping by the Hum of a Million Mosquitoes

Our second night in Corsica was a lesson in rashness.  Alhough it had been a good day for Stu and I, he was sick of driving, and the strain of having to find toilet opportunities every few miles for poor Kate was beginning to take its toll.  We picked up some eats for dinner and then started looking for possible campsites.  The plan was to head all the way down to the south coast and pitch up for the night so that we could hang out at the many great beaches the next day.  Below is one such delightful beach - Plage de Palombaggia:

Our campsite - Camping San Lucia.  Our accomodation for the second night.  Looked innocent enough, even nice?  Shady, secluded, uncrowded...

...completely desterted.  The campsite had about 50 berths, but only 2 were occupied - it was us, and some poor unfortunate Swiss family (complete with 6 month old baby).  We should have known better really, but the minute we got out of the car and started setting up, the mosquitoes descended in their ravenous thousands.  We were utterly unprepared for the onslaught and lost swathes of bare flesh to the ravages of the itchy lumps that quickly erupted on all limbs.  It became so bad that I was forced to put on my jeans - jeans! 

Outrage.  Poor Kate (PK) was at breaking point between fighting off the hordes of bloodsuckers and dealing with a terrible case of tap bum.  Stu and I escaped for a few hours in a desperate attempt flee the bugs and find the sea.  We didn't make it to the sea, but we did find a delightfully well-stocked local shop.  We bought as many bottles of the local brew as we could carry and headed back to the campsite pool (more of a mosquito swamp than idyllic swimming hole).  If we couldn't outrun the mossies, we could at least get them really pissed.  Maybe then they'd all vomit, pass out and leave us in peace to cook dinner.   

Our poor neighbours in the campsite had a fecking awful night.  We suffered through it too of course, there wasn't much to block out the sound of children wailing as they were being eaten alive.  I passed the mother on my way to the loo in the morning and her haunted eyes was enough to cause at least half of my remaining eggs to shrivel up on the spot.  I'd mentioned to her the night before when she was asking me whether the rest of Corsica was this bad, that our first night's campsite was amazeballs and that they should head north.  I can only hope they made it.  I've never seen a massive tent, table, chairs and kids packed up so fast.  On top of whining mossies, wailing kiddies and PK rushing to the loo every 10 minutes that night (and invariably tripping over tent flies, crashing into chairs, or simply taking a wrong turn, getting lost, and having to cooee her way back to the campsite), we also had local dogs howling all night.  Fabulous it was not, and if any good was to come of the experience, it taught us the important lesson of reconnaisance.  From that day on, we performed thorough checks of campsites (to the point of snobbery - we turned our noses up at the smallest of imperfections) before we deemed them acceptable.

Our 3rd and 4th night we stayed at Camping U Pirellu, and it was wonderful.  It was also 3 kms away from the most beautiful beaches.  It was a great place to stop for a couple of nights, there was so much to see and do in the area, and yes, we were pretty sick of packing and unpacking stuff everyday.  It was such an unanticipated luxury to get up in the morning and simply leave everything as it was.

The stunning Plage de Palombaggia.