Vive: La Corse

I finally finished French school! To be clear, the end of French school is not like a graduation and is not an indication that a particular level of proficiency was achieved. Rather, it is simply an economic marker-I completed the nine months of school that we paid for. One of the more difficult aspects of French school, in addition to the daily opportunities for public humiliation, was watching all the other students, many of whom I became attached to, leave. I was the Student-Who-Never-Left. When I mentioned to Marina, my French teacher, that I found this hard and that I often missed the students who left, she understood and said that if she ever quit teaching it would be because it was too hard to always have students leave. Well, my turn finally came.

My last two weeks of school were somewhat marred by a nasty virus that Marty and I shared and that gave Marty what he described as “the worse cold of his life.” The virus kept me out of school for a week and then left me with blocked ears for another week. Seriously impaired hearing is not conducive to language learning, so my final week was less than stellar. Marty, who was at a meeting in Italy, and I decided to meet up in Corsica to celebrate the end of French school and to try to recover from the virus that left Marty with sporadic coughing and me with intermittent sore throats.

Corsica, or La Corse as the French call it, is the fourth largest island in the Mediterranean and is perhaps most famous as the birthplace of Napoleon. Corsica has historically been a sort of political football being dominated at various times in its history by Carthage (current day Tunis), the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire (Greek speaking part of Roman Empire), the Vandals (Germanic tribe), the Arabs, the Lombards (northern European tribe who established the Kingdom of Italy), Genoa and, of course, France. France finally bought the island from Genoa in 1768, and it remains a French region to this day.

Despite a couple of centuries of French rule and French citizenship, Corsicans maintain an identity independent of the French. Xavier, my friend and the President of my sculling club, told me that the Corse, the Basque and the Bretons are the “pire” (worst). By this, I think he meant that these are the three groups in France that proudly maintain a separate cultural identity and occasionally express separatist leanings.

We took a rather harrowing bus trip on mountain roads with a Corse bus driver and two young people from Quebec. The bus driver was a colorful, friendly character, and he teased the two Quebecois when they returned to the bus by saying something like, “Here are the two Canadians.” To my surprise, one of the Quebecois replied, “If we are Canadian, then you are French.” Actually my surprise was more to learn that young Quebecois didn’t like being considered Canadian since I had already figured out that the Corse considered themselves Corsican and not French.

While waiting for Marty to arrive on the island, I visited a “miniature Corsican village” made out of stone by a local entrepreneur. He and I chatted a bit, and he told me that he doesn’t see many Americans (because there aren’t many who go to the island), but he does have a lot of Quebecois visitors to his little village. He then went on to say that “the French” were the worst as they never came to see his village and only wanted to visit the Corsican beaches. It was clear that “the French” were another people to him.

My friends Ghislaine and Xavier both warned me that the Corsicans did not exactly welcome tourists. Xavier wasn’t sure that I had understood exactly what he meant when he described the Corsican attitude. When I told him that I thought what he was describing was a bit like the sentiment expressed by the “Welcome to New Hampshire, now go home” bumper stickers he excitedly responded that yes, that was it exactly. The French and Corsicans normally don’t go in for bumper stickers, but perhaps a modified version of the New Hampshire bumper sticker might mark the beginning of a bumper sticker movement in Corse. Despite the warnings to the contrary, Marty and I, with two minor exceptions, generally found people to be very welcoming and quite charming. I’m not sure if we got lucky or perhaps the Corse are harder on the French tourists than on Americans.

We also didn’t get to southern Corsica, which may have influenced our view of the island. Our guide book noted that the “Mafia-ridden” south Corsica is “more closely associated with vendetta, banditry and separatism than any other part of the island.” The independence movement in Corsica over the decades (well actually over centuries) has been punctuated with bombings and the occasional political assassination. (This activity normally doesn’t affect tourists.) Most Corsicans, however, reportedly don’t want independence, in part perhaps because France heavily subsidizes the island economically.

Some of the more nationalistic Corsicans reportedly don't welcome non-Corse ownership of property on the island. My French teacher Marina is Corse, and she told us a story of an American who built a large resort on the island. When the resort was finished but not yet occupied, it was blown up. Not exactly subtle, but they apparently got the message.

The Corse, while not necessarily favoring independence, do want to promote their language, Corsu, a Romance language that is considered “endangered” by UNESCO. While we were there, a newspaper article described efforts being made to promote the use of Corsu, including having more bi-lingual schools and Corsu learning materials. Our Corsican bus driver said that he left Corse when he was 14 years old and, after thirty plus years in Paris, has returned to Corse and is working on re-learning the language. He asks other Corsicans to speak with him in Corsu, and it is slowly coming back to him. Since his wife isn’t Corse, I got the impression that they don’t speak Corse at home. Similarly, Marina said that when she was young her grandfather spoke to her in Corse, but my impression is that her family just uses French now. It seems that it will be an uphill battle for the Corse to overcome the dominance of the French language and reclaim their own language.

The great appeal of Corse is its mountainous terrain that meets spectacular white beaches with unbelievably clear and incredibly blue water. The Mediterranean climate, of course, is another draw with its warm, dry summers and mild winters. Our own voyage began in Bastia in northeast Corsica, where our ferries arrived from Marseille and Italy respectively. Bastia while less touristy than other towns in Corse has a lovely old port with lots of restaurants. We sought out Corsican delicacies in Bastia and even tried “fromage de tête,” which, to my surprise, wasn’t like cheese at all. (I won’t go into the details of head cheese because it grosses me out to think about it, but check out the link if you aren’t familiar with this delicacy.)

While wandering around Bastia before Marty’s arrival, I met three charming old Corsican men who invited me to sit with them and chat. One of them was quite a talker, and I think he liked having a fresh audience. He told me how he served in Morocco during the war and encountered American soldiers. He also told stories of Napoleon’s accomplishments in France. I’m not entirely clear about Corsican feelings toward Napoleon. While Napoleon is the most famous Corsican, he and his family were actually chased out of Corse by supporters of Pasquale Paoli, the leader of the Corsican independence movement that Napoleon’s father had once supported. According to our guide book, Napoleon renounced his allegiance towards Corsica and discarded the Corsican spelling of his name, Napoleone. Later in life he reportedly grew more nostalgic about Corsica.

We left Bastia by train for the mountain town of Corte, smack dab in the middle of Corsica. The air in Corte was incredibly dry, and we had a lovely hike through the Gorges du Tavignano. We then took the train through spectacular coastal mountain scenery to the west coast town of Calvi.

In Calvi, a tourist magnet, we enjoyed gawking at French beach goers during a long walk along the white sand beach. With great maturity and sophistication, I pointed out every topless woman I could find to Marty, who seems remarkably unable to find topless women on his own. (Perhaps it’s just a ruse on his part?) We were actually the real spectacle on the beach as we plodded along fully dressed among the bikini and Speedo clad French. I believe Marty, with his fear of cold and breezes, even wore his jacket zipped up as high as possible, the throat being the body part that is the most susceptible to dangerous drafts (according to the Lee world view). I actually would have gone in the water, but, not realizing we were going to end up on a terrific seaside beach, I had left my bathing suit in the hotel. Even in bathing attire, I would have been a spectacle as it seems that very fashionable “tankinis” like mine have yet to tempt Frenchwomen away from their string bikinis.

After a coastal hike through Calvi we took the bus to Porto along narrow, curvy mountain roads with staggering drop offs into oblivion. Our bus driver, while quite skillful, got a bit impatient towards the end of our journey and started passing other vehicles along questionable stretches, reminding us of why Corsican roads are among the most dangerous in Europe.

In Porto we were finally able to take a boat ride to the Scandola Nature Reserve, a UNESCO world heritage site where hiking and fishing are not allowed. The sea had been too rough during the previous two days for any tour boats to venture out. Marty and I had longingly looked out at the sea and thought maybe they were being a bit too conservative since the seas didn’t seem that rough, at least from a distance. We quickly learned, however, in our cute, little red tour boat “Pass’ Partout” that the seas were far from calm. The boat, when not protected in the rocky coves of the nature reserve, could best be described as a bucking bronco. A poor man on our boat was so sick that we abandoned him and his wife in the small village of Girolata that is accessible only by hiking trail and boat. Our boat captain kindly wished him “Bon Courage” as we departed. Among the remaining survivors I was the only one who lost my cookies, but, despite this rather grotesque public display which was of great interest to the two children on board, I managed to enjoy most of the trip, although the episode greatly aggravated my sore throat and left me more wasted than normal during the afternoon.

From Porto we moved on to Ajaccio, the political seat of Corse, where we took the ferry to Nice and then the train to Monaco (more on that later). Unfortunately, the spectacular Corsican scenery isn’t adequately represented by my pictures, but they will at least give you a small taste of the wonders of Corse. Some of the links in the text will take you to much better photos of Corsica.