We Meet Some New Friends

"You will,never be completely at home again, because part of your heart will always be elsewhere. That price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place." - Miriam Adeny

We continued our Corsican adventure by driving through the deep valleys and over the high passes of central Corsica. With mountains towering up to 10,000 feet, it's quite a landscape. Once you are off the main road (with many cars and huge trucks), you are invariably on tiny, twisty roads. There are a lot of farms and for some reason there don't seem to be many fences, so you see all sorts of animals along the way, mostly cows and pigs. 

Our first stop was in the town of Ghisoni, built on the side of a mountain at an altitude of about 3000 feet. In the summer there are many tourists, but normally only about 100 people live here. This, compared to a population of 1500 people a century ago. How do we know this?  Because we met Francois Battesi, a retired mechanical engineer who was born here, lived and worked in Paris as a mechanical engineer for 35 years, then came back and retired. We were walking around this small village, when we met Francois and we told him we were from San Francisco. He was so amazed that we had come from so far that he took us on a mini tour of his town, talking about some "famous" locals, such as the wife of a great mathematician who knew Einstein and the local fountain, built by a man who went to the Beaux Arts college in Paris and who was a friend of the maker of the Statue of Liberty. 

Francois then took us to his little shack that he built in the country, a ways outside of town. This shack was to be a place where he would make his chestnut preserve, which is a big deal in Corsica. Unfortunately, about five years ago, an insect arrived here from China that kills chestnut trees. Most of the trees are dying now. 

From here we drove to the coast, along beautiful rivers and under towering mountains, even seeing a huge bovine on the side of the road. We stopped at a farm that makes charcuterie and bought a cops and salami. We then had a nice little picnic on the beach, although it was windy and cold. 

Late in the afternoon we arrived in Bonifacio, which is the town the ferry leaves for Sardinia. It's a beautiful hill town, a couple of hundred feet above the sea, built over bright, white cliffs. There's a little charcuterie and wine shop, called Robs Nostra, where we met the proprietor, Tony, for some tasty wine, cheese and charcuterie.