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Like all rest days of long bike rides, ours too left the limbs more tired than before, perhaps due to nervous relaxation. It is 6:30 am and I am still in bed, the only thing that makes me move is the ticking I hear on the canopy of the hotel veranda. Don’t tell me it’s raining! Yes, a very light rain which however lasts no more than 5 minutes, so much so that it cannot even get wet on the ground, which then the blue begins to arrive from the sea, still leaving the mountains, which overlook Porto, with some clouds surrounding them.
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Cri writes postcards to her special customers as usual. At 10 we begin the longest climb of our entire tour. We have to overcome the hill at over 500 m, starting from scratch, near the village of Piana (flat), the name of a program. The road has a decent slope, in some places it makes us suffer a little.
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The excuse of photographs of the landscape, more and more blue and more and more open, is always a good way to catch your breath. Although the maximum gradient indicated is 12/13%, we never got off to push the bike, we did it all fully assembled. For this climb I also adopted the appropriate clothing given to me by my friend Salvatore: a mythical Stelvio wolf t-shirt. Clearly I wear it unworthily as I’ve never done the Stelvio, but Salvatore yes, and many times too, so much so that I have so many shirts that I can give myself one as a sign of friendship and sporting spur. Note aside, Salvatore, if I’m not mistaken, has reached 75, so hats off. In our defense, the road should actually be walked at a walking pace since every half-bend and even several times in a curve, the views are photographically incredible. A tremendous ramp of about one kilometer leads us to a hairpin bend in which we see a considerable number of parked cars. It’s an unmistakable sign that there must be something really interesting there.
Photo 6:the “tête du chain”
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And indeed it is. We see indicated a stone with the name of dog’s head. I get off the bike and get on to photograph it. I’m not sure where you have to photograph it from to see it’s a dog’s head. But then, from a side position, I can imagine Goofy’s head with low ears and pointed nose, Cri however tells me that I have a lot of imagination and as I may have seen such a thing, the judgment will wait for you from the photos. But where are all the people who are supposed to be with all these cars parked? There is no one at the head of the dog. I go down and see that there is another sign that says Castello Forte. Cri does not want to come, she prefers to be near the bicycles and invites me to go. You don’t have to tell me twice. I run up and down the path until I reach the 400 m ravine, overcoming many people even in considerable difficulty on this path, which requires adequate legs and shoes. The absolute emptiness under my feet, the unimaginable spectacle of completely red rocks all around with shapes that to many seem worthy of an animal name or other. I take pictures and one of me with the self-timer, on the edge of the precipice, I hope it went well.
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Returning quickly to the point where I left Mariacristina, I see two girls sitting on the cliff overlooking the sea with their backs turned towards me looking away at the deep blue of the sea and the sky. It is an image that I like too much! In my broken French I ask for permission to take a photo which is granted to me, leaving the girls clearly amazed, but hopefully not frightened. I thank and go back to Cri in full swing, overcoming the people with shoes that are not suited to the route I had already met on the first leg. I tell Cri about the two girls and try to figure out what their car could be. I write a note with my name and a tag where the photograph is and I go to figure out which windshield to put it on. But one by one all the machines restart, so I get a suspicion. In fact, the girls go back to the street and handing them the ticket I ask what their car was. None, they are hitchhikers, I would add romantics, because I think there are very few left around the world. They thank me for the tag and we say hello.
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From here the road becomes an extraordinary thing, all completely carved into the red rock of the mountain on the left, with overhangs of 400 m and more to the right, very low walls and curves against curves where two cars have to stop to cross each other. The only thing that disturbed a bit was the usual maniac with the drone who, to be photographed in an athletic way, risks his life by climbing a rocky spur in the middle of the ravine and then raising his arms towards the sky until the drone flies over it. Beautiful image for sure, but definitely not for me. I wish I had a nice can of insecticide to take it down … the drone, what do you understand?
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We pass the last spur of rock, always uphill and cross the hill towards the town of Piana. We weren’t very hungry, but it was half past twelve and it seemed okay to put in at least a small sandwich. We make a mistake at the bar and take a seat in the part reserved for the restaurant. We think that we would have found sandwiches on the menu, instead there are only pizzas, salads and various dishes. Now that we are there Cri orders a salad with burrata and I the brigand’s dish, a little salami, another name I don’t understand and cheese. The waitress arrives, hands the plate with the salad to Cristina and under the eyes and the murmurs of those present, she places the bandit’s plate in front of me, a mega formation of Corsican cured meats of all types and qualities, cheeses, wild boar pate and fig jam. I am amazed, as are the many motorcyclists present, who in a language other than the one I can understand, are wondering where I can put all that stuff. Of course there was also bread to accompany it all! I must say that the cured meats were good, especially the wild boar which I found very similar to my preparation for the ravioli filling. I had a wrong memory of wild boar meat. I manage to finish everything and we leave Piana certainly satisfied.
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A further tear above Piana brings us to the maximum altitude of our tour, 511 m. if I’m not wrong. The descent begins, no longer by the sea, but inside. Cri has some difficulty with the brakes again and I will certainly have to take others of a different type, more reliable than these on the way back. In the stop to fix them, looking around us we see two incredible things. Near us some orchids of the Serapias species, and further away, on the valley floor, a waterfall that descends from the mountain. We try a macro photo and one with the tele, but clearly with the cellphone not much is to be expected.
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We arrive almost on the seashore and a new uphill stretch takes us to 100 m of the hill from which you can see the Cargese beach. Always downhill and thanks to Google we reach the bottom, back to the sea, only to have to go up another 100 m. to reach the town center, when we could have easily continued on the D81 without having to go down to the sea and then go up again. Who knows what the Maps algorithm may have thought.
Tomorrow we will arrive in Ajaccio from where we will return to Bastia by train, as long as les Chemins de Fer Corse let us get on their bikes.
@DeniGu @PattyBlack @ErmesT @TravellerG @Erna_LaBeau
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la bomboletta di insetticida per il drone mi piace, ci vorrebbe anche la regolarizzazione del traffico aereo tanti ce n’è in giro adesso!!
