Porto Vecchio to Piana, Corsica …between mountains and the sea

September 9th, 2022

After our excursions to Bonifacio and the Aiguilles de Bavella, we gave ourselves some time off with a visit to a local beach and another crack at the Old Town. So far Corsica has exceeded our expectations, it is a lovely island with activities to satisfy most appetites.

How can you resist such a display !!!

We are treated to a beauty of a sunset as the scribe works into the night…

 

September 10th, 2022

Another gorgeous morning…

… some are leaving on the ferry…

 

… and we too are bidding farewell to Porto Vecchio, our VRBO host arrives on the stroke of 10:00 bearing a parting gift of Corsican jams, very cool. Today we are driving through the southern end of Corsica via the island’s capital, Ajaccio, and onwards to Piana our home for the next 4 nights.

A reasonable drive of some 4-5 hours. With a stop in Ajaccio to check out Napoleans’s birth home (not too exciting) and lay in some provisions at the Carrefour. We drove pretty well straight through so only a few pics out the car window:

 

We are in Piana by 14:30 … text the host who arrives to meet us by the fountain in the town square. Piana is a small village located at an elevation of 450m in the hills above the ocean, our rental is in the heart of the village… as we enter our unit…

…the host tells us that our daughter had called her > our first thought is OMG maybe something is wrong, but no, we see there is a bottle of sparkling wine, some candles,  goodies, and most importantly a birthday card from Ella & Steve, our children…it is of course Annie’s birthday !!!  SURPRISE Corsican style… Ella had pretended to book a reservation to get the host’s phone number and then asked them to get a birthday card … the host obviously went much further and created a super “birthday surprise”. She actually apologized that Piana is a village without a true patisserie, so the only sweets available were some typical Corsican pastries…Genevieve, you did great !!

Time to look around the village and then have an eat-in dinner as we did not want to hassle with finding a resto etc.

Piana, we understand is close to two main attractions the Calanques de Piana and the Scandola Nature Reserve as well as some outstanding hiking…the view below (Scandola Nature Reserve) is from a few alleys away from our digs;

And, while our meal was great the dessert was the real bonus!!!

A very decent day …..we are stoked, as the next few days promise to be exciting with a very favorable weather forecast !!!