Wk 13 – Sardinia & Corsica

Tue 9 to Sat 13 August
Cala Gonone – Santa Teresa Gallura – Propriano – Porto Ota – Bastia – Livorno

Tue 9th Cala Gonone to Santa Teresa Gallura – 180k

It looked like another warmish day so we got on the road earlyish and after enjoying the delightful twisties back up to and over the ranges we headed north.
We dropped into Santa Lucia and checked out the defensive Torre di Santa Lucia, built in 1606.

Then through La Caletta and onto Olbia where we stopped for a coffee while we waited for a traffic jam to clear.
There were beautiful mountain views behind us as we headed north.

Portisco with its many luxury sea craft was our next port of call.

Cannigione beckoned us to stop in quiet seclusion under the shade of pine trees for a hydration top up.

We then skirted the coast from this bay to that bay all with their own collection of rich men’s toys – good for them.

Another coffee overlooking the basin at Palau.

Before a final run into Santa Teresa Gallura and our budget air conditioned room. We took a wander, had a swim and went out for dinner.

Wed 10th – Santa Teresa Gallura (Sardinia) to Propriano (Corsica) – 90k

Its a 1 hour ferry ride from Santa Teresa Gallura on the northern tip of Sardinia, to Bonifacio at the southern tip of Corsica. We caught the 9am boat

And enjoyed the leisurely trip across the straight which is a very busy stretch of water. The Bonifacio harbour entrance is truly tiny for a ferry of this size, but it opens up into a sizeable harbour.

We headed north on a lovely road with some great views.

Before taking a break at Caselle.

From here it was an easy run into Propriano.

Thur 11th – Propriano to Porto Ota – 160k

Temps today promised to be sensible at 27c. It intrigues me that by far the greater majority of riders and pillions we see on touring bikes, are wearing only runners, shorts and T-shirts. Whereas we’re fully kitted for that 1 in a million unfortunate incident, so we do feel the heat even though modern synthetic safety gear is reasonably well ventilated.

Ajaccio was our first stop after we’d spent the first couple of hours diving in and out of bays and up and over headlands. We found a little nook to park and took the time to watch the world go by while we sampled the local coffee.

Onto Cargese then the final 30klms into Porto through a landscape that seemed like we were visiting Mars on a road that clung desperately to the cliff faces.

And into Porto Ota and a lovely air conditioned room overlooking the sea. With a pool.

We took a lay day here at Porto Ota.

Sat 13th – Porto Ota to Bastia – 135k

There had been massive thunderstorms up in the mountains behind Porto Ota last night with torrential rain and much thunder and lightening.
Normally that wouldn’t be a bother, but today we had to get on the road by 7am as we had a ferry to catch for Livorno and we needed to be at Bastia by 11.30am so as to not miss said ferry. So there was no waiting around for an hour or so for others to clear the roads.

It’s 90klm of considerably windy narrow roads from Porto Ota to coffee at Ponte Leccia, add to that the enormous amount of leaf litter and road wash that covered the road at nearly every corner and it made for an interesting ride at an average speed of 35k/hr. Better safe that sorry. The sunrise was amazing albeit directly into my line of sight.

We made the ferry on time.

We landed on mainland Italy at 7.30pm and found our room, which came with a free outdoor opera right across the road which kicked off at 10pm. Good thing our room had double glazed windows and air conditioning because it wasn’t exactly essential listening.

From Livorno we’ll head north to Levanto for 3 nights, then Orta San Giulio for 3 nights before heading up into Switzerland, so I’ll see you next week.