Corsica

Ajaccio

Again, in the Explorer's Lounge, second level, watching us drift into port, slowly, quietly.  The dawn is just starting to make itself known behind some moderate-sized mountains to the east.  The ship shudders as it does something sudden with the engine – reverse to slow down?  Then quiet again.  There are lights all around us; another sheltering bay.

As I write this, I don't know what the name of this city is.  I heard it yesterday during the Port Talk, and even thought that its pronunciation was interesting given the spelling.  But I don't remember it, so I'll have to look it up in order to properly title this post.  I do know that we are sailing into Corsica, which is a large French island off the coast of France, north of Sardinia and the home of Napoleon Bonaparte.  

I mentioned a day or so ago about doing math as soon as I wake up; my phone is on Eastern Standard Time.  Whenever I wake up, in the winter, it is dark, so it could be any time.  This morning, I did the math wrong when I woke up, and got up way too early.  Let's say that I got most of the Picasso Project completed before I came up here to watch the dawn over Corsica.

I also remember being told that we would be the only ship in port today; yesterday, a ship with 7,000 passengers spent the day.  I doubt they'll even notice us.

Corsica is part of France, but only since 1769, when – coincidentally – Napoleon was born.  As we have been told a number of times, it may be part of France, but is distinctly Italian in culture.  Fun fact:  The British occupied Corsica for two years (1794-96), as part of their endless war with France.

Now that it is lighter, and we are nearer, it appears that the mountains are larger than I first thought.  As Marseillaise is ringed by a ridge of hills, this bay is ringed by mountains – with one or two bigger ones in the distance.  With snow on top of them.

So we're in Ajaccio, the capital of Corsica and its biggest city.  Corsica is a territorial collectivity of France, meaning that it has more autonomy than other political divisions of France.  Ajaccio is like a US state capital, but with a little more responsibility.  I've heard three different pronunciations of the 'cc' in Ajaccio – 'ss,' 'ch,' and 'ks.'  Take your pick

Looking back east from the Bloodthirsty Islands

If you have found Ajaccio on the map – west coast, south of center, big bay and harbor – follow the road west until it gets to Archipel des Sanguinaires – the Bloodthirsty Islands.  That's where we went first on the bus.  Just offshore, they are pretty islands, the name not withstanding.  We got out of the bus, walked down to the water, looked at it and the scenery.  We saw some fish farming – sea bass.   There is an ancient Greek tower on a bluff at the end of the land, which was being reconstructed.  The Greeks were only one of the civilizations that were exploring the Mediterranean long before the Romans, and they were here centuries BC.  The tower is closed, so no history lesson today.

We returned to town, parked and found ourselves at the base of a really hyperbolic memorial installation dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte.  I'll put my picture of it here, or you can Google “ajaccio corsica napoleon memorial” and click 'images.'  It's pretty over the top, to say the least.  The Napoleonic Wars killed between 2.5 and 3.5 million soldiers all told, and between 750,000 and 3 million civilians.  Much of the carnage, especially in the later years, was fueled mainly by his ego and drive for conquest and expansion.  He crowned himself emperor in Notre Dame in 1804 and became an absolute dictator.  And yet the French love him – or loved him; not sure how they feel about him now.  Loved him – when he was winning, because they were victories for France.  At the end, however...  But they did bring his body back from St. Helena's to Paris in 1840, and enshrined it the excessively opulent Les Invalides where it can be seen today.

So – not so thrilled about the Napoleon memorial.  It really is excessive, for someone who lived in town from birth through nine years old, and it also made me think that this may be what we have in store once our aspiring dictator dies.  

Anyway, we returned to the bus and drove toward the center of town, past the bow windows.  Turns out the British accomplished another occupation of Corsica, this time in the late 19th century, when they began coming here in large numbers to vacation in the winter.  Or at least the wealthy ones did.  They introduced bow windows to Corsica architecture.  And there they are!

Off the bus for a walking tour of the old part of town, near the water.  We first stood outside the house

where Napoleon was born.  The popular story of his birth was this:  his very pregnant mother was at mass one Sunday and suddenly insisted she be transported home by sedan chair (his family were wealthy landowners).  She arrived home and gave birth on the first floor (which is actually the second floor, in the European scheme of things).  The house, in the built up old downtown, is yellow at the moment, and part of a large block of attached houses, similar to most buildings in the area.  You can visit it, starting at the second floor, and progressing toward the ground floor.  There is no guide; you can rent an audio guide.  I include all this because all my colleagues from Hyde Hall are always interested in how tours of other historic houses are conducted.  Here in Napoleon's house, you apparently exit through the gift shop, which is as it should be.

More history, much of it about Napoleon's family.  On to the city center, an open plaza with a statue of Napoleon, dressed as a Roman consul, with a pigeon on his head.  That's where the Christmas Market is, and that's where the tour ended.  Our third Christmas Market, our second with a carousel.  One or two stalls with unique or interesting merchandise; this one has a lot of food stalls.  We walked the relatively short trail to the ship – the ship is parked right downtown – and passed what might have been a small temporary ice rink on the way – there was a wall around it, and we could only see the people from the waist up, and they seemed to be skating.

Another very long lunch on the rear deck, facing the town; a beautiful view, and just warm enough to sit for a while in shirtsleeves.  The city rises up the hill pretty sharply, with older yellow, goldenrod, yellow ochre, tan and (very few) white buildings up the bottom half; just about every building has red tiled roofs.  The land is flatter to either side of the city center, and the city spreads out in both directions.  Higher up on the hill, up from the center of town, the city continues as the hill gets steeper, and the buildings are much bigger and mostly white.  They are all oriented parallel to the shoreline, and are very horizontal in style; this is probably because they are apartment buildings; each apartment has a balcony overlooking the bay which connects to the next door balcony, and the buildings have no other ornamentation.  A very distinctive look. 

To our left, the bay widened out to the sea a few miles away, and a storm had been sweeping in and out, teasing us with dark clouds and breezes, and this actually made for some pretty dramatic lighting and some great pictures (top of page) – and, later, after a very little rain, a spectacular sunset.

All in all, it's a very pretty town, almost travel-brochure pretty, and once again, I wonder about our fellow-travelers' lack of interest in looking around at these new places they have come to see.  Most of the time, there are empty tables out on the deck with the killer view, and the tables inside are full.  

Our ship was parked next to a huge ferry.  We will find, as we travel the Mediterranean, that ferries as

big as, and bigger than, cruise ships are a very big deal here.

After lunch I finished the Picasso Project.  I've already forgotten what I've said about this, but here's the story:  Abbey and I got excited about what we were seeing in the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, mostly about the great skill and artistic maturity he seemed to be exhibiting as a teenager, and his effortless grasp of so many artistic styles.  He's known for Cubism and, to a lesser extent, surrealism, but may, he could do anything, and do it well.  And other themes we were interested in.  I wondered if I could get all this down on paper, so we could remember it, but it would take a very different kind of journal entry than I had done before.

Long story short, I gave it a shot, and finished it yesterday.  I don't know how interesting it will seem to anyone else, but it's there for us to remember.  

Since it involves a lot of pictures (photography was allowed in the Museum) it didn't make sense to compose it in the word processor and then copy/paste it into an e-mail, and then, later, transfer it to the online format, because the formatting would be a nightmare from the beginning.  So I composed it in the online format, and it appears as a separate post in this journal.

We left Ajaccio under the gaze of a killer sunset.  Good tidings!

Sights of Ajaccio