We have to climb the Bocca di Bonassa. If you want to freeride in Corsica, you have to suffer first. The climbs are tough, as the mountains rise up directly behind the beach and jut into the sky like Alpine peaks. Corsica is the fourth largest island in the Mediterranean. 180 kilometres long, just under 80 kilometres wide, but with over 1000 kilometres of coastline and up to 2700 metres high, it is a mountain range in the sea. There are said to be over fifty two-thousand metre peaks here. The good thing is that Corsica is so close to the Italian mainland that you can make the crossing for a reasonable price. Without traffic jams, it takes seven hours by car from Munich directly into the belly of the ferry.
The decision in favour of Corsica is easy for us, as we only have a week, but we want to extend the summer. At home, the weather is typical end-of-October grubbiness. That means freeriding with a red nose and clammy fingers. Too shady - even in Bolzano or on Lake Garda. Corsica is completely different: here the sun is still blazing in late summer mode and the sea warms the island like a giant central heating system. The air is fragrant. Of eucalyptus, marjoram, lavender and rosemary - Napoleon claimed, much quoted, that he could smell his home island from 30 miles away, even at night and in fog.
Corsica is wild. Not only do the mountains carve up the island, causing the roads to lurch around like fleeing rabbits, but half of the island is also overgrown with maquis. A nasty, prickly thicket of waist- to shoulder-high bushes that annoyed Asterix and Obelix when hunting wild boar, served as a hiding place for the French Resis tance during the Nazi occupation and came to the aid of the Corsican independence movement in the 1980s when fleeing from the police. "In Scandinavia you can hike anywhere - in Corsica you have to stay on the trails or the maquis will scrape the skin off your body," warn travel blogs on the internet. Tattered legs, but solitude. I like the Corsican wilderness.
You can read all about the French island adventure in the PDF download below.
