James Gaston

Corsican hill towns

More Porto

Two hikes and a road race 5 Oct 2017 Two hikes and a road race 5 Oct 2017 Cars, Corsica, Porto, Serriera --

We decided to leave Algajola a day early to get in some hiking in the Porto - Piana area. So come morning we got back in the Citroën and retraced our path from a couple days earlier. Our goal was to check into a hotel in Serriera, a village about 10 minutes outside of Porto, then drive to Porto to hike.

On checking into our simple but comfortable hotel we learned from the friendly proprietor that the road to Porto was closing in half an hour! Turns out the road was being used all afternoon by the Tour de Corse. It would reopen at 19:00, she said. Since she spoke no English and we know little French the conversation took place courtesy of google translate which we used by taking turns typing into a computer. This worked quite well.

Of course we'd no idea what the Tour is, a bicycle race? A foot race? A car race? Yes, we should have asked. Turns out, well, more on that later.

We jumped back into the car and headed south, past Porto and then onto the trailhead.

Within five minutes we were stuck in a traffic jam. Cars, trucks, buses, and motorbikes took turns squeezing past each other on the narrow road, with granite hanging over us on one side, and a sheer drop to the sea on the other. On the bright side it was great for picture taking: while Paul sat in the Citroen's driver's seat and inched forward I walked ahead and shot photos.

Once in Porto we discovered the Tour de Corse is a car race. So that mystery was cleared. It also explained the sporty cars we'd seen on the road earlier, all decked out in numbers and stickers.

The hike was easy and scenic. The trail followed an old stone path, what was likely a road connecting villages, and it overlooked the Calanche de Piana with its pink granite forest broken by views of the turquoise Mediterranean.

Corsica looks to be a hikers dream as the mountainous island is covered with trails. We see many people decked out in full hiking gear. The Corsican trails are well marked plus every one I've looked for I've found in OpenStreetMaps using the CityMaps2Go app.

After the hike we headed to Piana for lunch then followed that up with another hike. We had to kill time till the road re-opened. We hiked about half of the Capu Rossu trail, which heads west out to a promontory with, again, great views of pink granite mountains, scrubby green forests, and that crystal clear Mediterranean sea.

Soon we were back in Porto where we hung out with the Tour racers and waited for the road to reopen, which it did promptly at 19:00. The drive back involved another traffic jam as cars, trucks, vans, motorcycles, and Tour support vehicles squeezed by each other to get to their destinations. At this point we thought we were through with the boy racers. Ah but we weren't.

It was a long day with a lot of beautiful scenery topped with a taste of an old Steve McQueen movie. We were glad to get back to our charming hotel, drink a beer, and call it a night.