66 - A real cliffhanger

Wednesday, May 08

Here it is, another vacation and I'm more or less playing by ear again. With the helpful eye of my coworker, my flight to Figari/Bonifacio lines up right with when I'll need to return the rental car to Bordeaux. So with a quick breakfast and a pear in my pocket, I made it to Bordeaux by 9:15. The return complete and mes affaires with me, I headed straight through security to wait for boarding my Ryan Air flight. Turns out there was a 30 minute delay but we were airborne soon enough.

The seats on the flight were surprisingly comfortable for how barebones they were. I don't know if I could do an 8 hour flight in them but for 1.5, it was just right 👍

Waiting for the crossing guard to let the people at the front of the plane cross the street to board.

Per Google Maps, this is right about where the Rhone river lets out into the Mediterranean

And I believe this is Marseille. Let's hope nobody down there wants to s'explique something to me.

This is when we parted from the Côte Azure and started flying over just the Azure

The beauty of packing very light for this trip was that I saved on checked bags (money and time) and I headed straight to the car rental desk. A quick look about while exiting the airport revealed some impressive mountains to the North obscured by clouds. I had difficulty catching everything the girl at the rental desk said, maybe a combination of the plexiglass barrier, the speed of her words, and (for one question) asking something I had no answer for: my driver's license was renewed in NJ in 2022, she was asking if I was a new driver with <2 years experience and if I did have more years of experience, why does my license say 2022??? I eventually came away with an all-electric Fiat 500. It wasn't what I had reserved but it'll get me where I need to go.

The rental office had me download an application to find EMotem charging stations; apparently over 150 stations exist on the island (though not all are high speed).

The drive from the airport to the marina parking lot of Bonifacio was about 20 minutes. I tried playing with some of the settings and controls with regards to the radio and cruise control but I gave up since the road was too curvy to keep my eyes focused on the controls. My timing seemed to work well since the parking lot was full but the attendant said many people were leaving and the system was letting cars in as they left.

From the parking lot, it was a 10 minute walk into the walled, upper city but first I swung by the office of tourism in the harbor since it was en route. I'm glad I did since they gave me a couple maps and pointed out the closing time of the primary exhibits. Armed with more info, I made the climb to the haute ville and the bastion. The bit of history inside the bastion was surprisingly informative, providing a few key events for Bonifacio's history: built by Pisans, it was taken by Genovese, who repelled a siégé by Spain (Aragon & Catalonia who had control of 90% of the island), it was surrendered to allied French/Turk armies who were feuding with allied Spanish/Italian forces, and finally was turned over to French control by the Treaty of Versailles.

Whoever wants to storm Bonifacio's gate will be storming for a while uphill

Not the original door mechanism, but I thought this was a neat system.

Most of the signs in Corsica have French but also this regional language somewhere between French and Italian.

Visiting the bastion overlooking the harbor. In the background, there's a church (hermitage) situated atop one of those peaks.

Seeing the exposed bricks in the ceiling, I was scratching my head about how they stay up.

Take a good look around.

The harbor felt quite modern and had a tourist strip but the city and surrounding area didn't really feel like a theme park or anything like that.

I think Corsica has been cultivated for long enough that I'm sure the line between native and adapted plants is quite blurry now. Google Lens says this is an ornithogalum.

One of the main churches of the city in a plaza, interestingly, the buildings are often close enough to each other that supports can sometimes be seen from one to the other. Per the plaques in the streets, the city design was based on the Genovese model: grid like streets with narrow alleys between buildings.

So that's how they do construction and renovation on buildings like these...

More of those inter-building supports at work.

A view along the cliffs; Bonifacio isn't quite at the island's most southerly tip but it's just a short skip and jump from it. The surrounding area is a protected zone (both land and sea); I believe it's called Les Levres de Bonifacio (the lips of Bonifacio).

Remodeling of the bastion for the museum revealed some more ancient foundations that had simply been built over before. Someone's relaxing in the old alley.

It's a fairly steep dropoff, in fact, I think the city perimeter is built on slightly overhanging rock.

From the bastion, I made my way further into town and hit the next tourist item: les escaliers du roi d'Aragon. Carved into a natural fault to facilitate fetching water from a spring down below, these stairs get their name from a debunked myth of Aragonian soldiers carving them for the siege. There actually wasn't too much to see aside from getting up close and personal with the stone the cliff is made of or the falling bits being buffeted by the waves.

It's a pretty steep and irregular staircase; I wouldn't want to have to lug water up it

But the staircase was a good way to get close to the city's bed-ish rock. It's surprisingly sandy, like a concretion.

I thought it strange I was required to wear a helmet to walk down stairs but after I bumping my head in the corridor carved into the cliff face, things became clearer to me.

Mind the gap, found at the end of where we were allowed to access.

See what I mean by sandy? To break a siege of this Bonifacio (forever) you could just sick a few hundred people with brushes onto the base of the cliffs; you'll have the city in the palm of your hands in just a few hundred years!

A different perspective of the stairwell from below. I feel this angle also made the rocky formations in the water more interesting; there's definitely some curve to the bits sticking above the surf.

What goes down, must come up!

When I came back up the steps, it was basically 17h and the tourist places were closing down. But I finished my tour of the city by making it out to the battery at the end of the Bonifacio plateau.

This was originally a tower built by the Pisans; when the Genovese took over, they kept and expanded on it. Those expansions eventually included reinforcing the walls to resist canon fire.

An interesting water fountain near the tower: you have to spin the handle for water to come out.

Headed towards the westerly tip of the plateau; here's a few old buildings left behind. The city appears to be renovating the northern wall, maybe someday people will be able to walk the entire perimeter of the city!

It was starting to get warm in the afternoon with the sunlight; away from the edge of the plateau there was only a slight breeze here.

Some people were filming something on these old ramparts. Seems it was mostly about some heads with cloth wagging about over the wall; also, I'm fairly certain the filming was being done with a phone. The director probably could have used some walkie talkies or wireless ear buds and a phone call to better communicate with the actresses up above

The mouth of the harbor; per the bastion's museum, the passage used to be secured by a chain back in the day

15 minutes can save you 15% or more on your travel insurance

The very tip of the plateau was built up into a defensive platform when things got tense between France and Italy

Turns out Sardinia is just across the way; you an even see some of its outer isles today

The plateau is pretty big. Outside from the centreville is a few buildings the French put up for isolating the military base from the town and a graveyard (nowadays there's a kindergarten across from the military's well)

Spotted this weird plant getting ready to bloom. They were pretty plentiful around the cliff edge.

When the city was sieged, it's weird to think enemy forces would have just encamped and set up bombardments on the other side of the water.

In the city, almost all the buildings featured some steep stairs for residents. I recall an electric bike being up something like 3 flights of stairs.

The restaurant taking advantage of all that open alley to have some outdoor seating.

Back on the outside of the city with a new appreciation for what I'm looking at.

Oh hey, it's the flower I'd seen earlier but bloomed! Google Lens says it's some sorta Ferula

When I finished the lap around the city I went straight into walking the cliffs heading futher south. From these cliffs, you get an interesting view of the city and an appreciation for just how close Sardinia is. I ended up calling it quits early on my walk; I'd intended to continue to all the way to the lighthouse but since I was getting hungry, I turned back and opted to check into the hotel.

Looking good, Bonifacio!

Here we can see the overhang of the cliff more clearly. I'm also wondering about the stalactite formations showing in the gray band.

These must be the last few large section of the cliff to break off; I've forgotten the names but Bonifacians have names for these two.

This was a sort of choose-your-own-adventure trail. You could follow the cliff face closely or take one of the offshoots into the scrub. Terrain was mostly flat but you needed to watch your step

Ye olde abattoir, I'm guessing this drain to the cliff's edge was well used back in the day.

Getting just a little further from the city

It took me a good minute to figure out where the rustling sound was coming from; I guess this turtle was getting settled into a spot for the evening.

Eventually cairns started popping up on the trail. This is about the point where I decided to turn back; I could see the marine radar/semaphore station but it would've been a looong walk to it.

From the parking lot to the hotel was just a few minutes drive. As I drove up the steep incline to the hotel, a woman came walking down towards town. I pulled into the hotel parking lot and found that the reception person had called it quits just before I arrived; maybe it was the woman I saw? The reception had left a key and a piece of paper with instructions for one "John Hu" about how to get to my room. The hotel only has 4 rooms so it wasn't too difficult to find my humble abode for the night.

I dropped my stuff and turned around to head into town for dinner. With no reception person to ask for a recommendation, I figured I'd just roll the dice on a restaurant. The menus I'd seen walking around town all featured an Bonifacio-style eggplant dish so I figured that'd be something to try. I almost made it back into the hauteville but decided to eat at one of the restaurants in the marina; it was a good meal and rejuvenated me enough to do a night-time lap of the hauteville before calling it a night.

Aubergine à la façonne bonifacienne

Go sports team! This convoy did the whole one-way loop around and through the city with high, honking energy. I'm still not quite sure which team they were celebrating a win for, I don't think SC Bastia played tonight.

Now we can the see the town lights in northern Sardinia

A tour of Bonifacio 2: electric boogaloo

Interesting to see this restaurant just build over the old building foundation and keep a bigger crawlspace

The mechanism on the French door (called French because the French put it into the city wall when they were trying to insulate the military station from the town)