An incredibly straight forward trip from Lyon’s NEW airport to Bastia, Corsica, past the Alps with a view to Mont Blanc and straight over Monte Carlo, resulted in a wise decision to split responsibilities, as Lea waited an hour for the bags and James an hour for the rental car.  Both tasks completed concurrently as we laughed at those that performed this in serial, only to more than double their wait time….laughs that were soon quelled as the reality of the “free upgrade” from FIAT 500 to SUV for Corsican roads (more to come) started to sink in.

Apparently, the Mediterranean islands are known for their amazing beaches, but Lea’s desire to learn how farms are handed from one generation to the next resulted in our first stop in the wine lands of…Patrimonio.  We had an incredible lunch with a view, and one of the best wine tastings ever in this unlikely wine region before continuing on driving through one of the most stunning landscapes and worst driving James can remember, to our first night in beautiful Corsica.

The first night was not as you might expect on a summer holiday island, rather, we chose to lock ourselves away in a bubble in the mountains.  One of the best experiences of our lives!  We had:

• James giggling like a school person as the lights went off in the bubble and he went full bubble boy
• A massive argument as James (the bubble boy) tried to explain the reason behind the Moor’s head used on the Corsican flag only to be corrected by Lea that it was a Moop’s head
• Enjoyed an incredible feast of local goodies, of which Lea’s favourite would have been the salsa, had we not wanted to combine bubble boy, moops and salsa together in fear of being sued
• Fits of nervous laughter after eating wild boar sausage, boar ham and boar rillette before hearing actual wild boar roam around us while we were outside the protection of our glad wrap accomodation
• Nervous moments as we realised harmless Dutch Ovens may recirculate and become Dutch bubbles
• Learnt that a dry toilet is nothing to fear, until you realise it’s just a bucket in disguise with a paddle in a bowl of sawdust, and that your hosts are going to own more of your personal information than anyone could possibly hope or want to hold as you pray the boar three ways didn’t give you food poisoning;
• Came to realise that the bubble, amazingly, was worth the drive!

After the safety of our bubble, our chickens soon came home to roost after previous Parisienne jokes about bush fired pizzas (feu de bois) led to us crawling in traffic through 2 bush fires, as we realised our only options were to be sheep and follow everyone else into the oven.  We sat in fear looking at smoke and wondering how bushfires start when there hadn’t been any lightning…while watching every other car throw their ciggies out the window.

Our next night was in Hotel Napoleon in Boney’s home town of Ajaccio and, surprisingly or ironically, with the cheapest stay of the trip, and after a few forehead bruises from the mainland already, had the highest bathroom ceilings so far!  We set out on a cruise for a three hour tour, a three hour tour of the bay at sunset thinking what could possibli go wrong?  We didn’t have to think for long as we watched the crew smoke, drink, perform multiple boat to boat mid-sea transfers of je ne sais quoi and generally take us to right to the edge of what could possibli go wrong.  We maybe should have got off after the Skipper’s 5 minute intro in French to rapturous applause and laugher was followed with, “euh, Anglais ah?  Euh, em, one rule…don’t fall off”.  It turns out a “wine tasting” cruise in French is actually a “piss up” for all…the Skipper, brave and sure, included. After witnessing the most drunken dockings by a Skpper since <editor’s note: you can’t put his name in here as he was a professional chandler> at Geordie Bay we weren’t surprised the crew forgot to put out the gangway as watched drunk cruisers leap onto the jetty like pissed lemmings (note we didn’t say frogs) off a cliff.  The “tastings” not adequately absorbed by the “local delicacies” served…cheese and ham, quelle surprise, and some sort of onion pop tart.

Lea did a stellar job of navigating our way across the entire fucking island to our final stop in Bonifacio and FINALLY drop off our fucking van (or what felt like one).  Thank the heavens this wasn’t our first driving experience (although definitely the toughest) as Lea’s instructions had James fuming “say loop-dee-loop ONE MORE TIME!” And if Lea’s hair appears a little unruly in any photos from here on, it’s due to the use and/or mention of hairpins being henceforth strictly forbidden.  In hindsight, I was probably a little Corse…just like Napoleon I guess.

The only highlights of the driving were the incredible scenery that I didn’t get to witness, and the varied “thank yous” from locals as they passed by. From hazard lights flashing, to foot shakes from bikers, to aggressive hand waves and honking.  And the only lost in translation moment came at at winery (of Corse) after we decided to let the lovely lady there practice her English rather than vice versa, which we thought would help us understand more….which we did, particularly after we finally realised by “meal” she meant “veal”.  We’d struggled to answer “do you eat meal in Australia?” and “I think our meal is a different colour to yours”.

Bonifacio was incredible.  After dropping off the car, we were told there were not taxis today, but, used to the impossible in France, of Corse we replied “no worries, we can walk”.  We couldn’t of Corse, we had to hike…Google maps failing to reveal the elevation required to get to our Airbnb.  After seeing the stunning cemeteries on our drive, we also weren’t surprised our hosts recommended we visit the local one for our last French (for now) sunset where we watched wave after wave of super yachts roll in thinking “I bet they’re wishing they were drinking in a cemetery car park right now”.

We were lucky enough to wake up in Bonifacio, before departing to Italy by ferry, to the wonderful news of our newest niece, Hazel, entering the world…and thus ensuring Lea’s pre-written card correctly predicted we were in France…though you took it to down to the wire guys!!!

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