The schedule to give it up starts at the end of 2013. So still 6 months to go and I better start practising.  Have taken a 2 week break with U to Southern Corsica.  What a great idea that was to come here.

So far the weather has been marginal; it has been mainly sunny but strong winds that have rattled the roof tiles.  The wind is from the west but it has a cold edge to it which should not be there this late in the spring.  However, we are not alone as the whole western Mediterranean is suffering with hardly anyone seeing 20C.  But it is mainly sunny and so the countryside looks spectacular.  It is still very green and with this late spring, all the alpine and meadow flowers are out in full blossom.

What is not blossoming is the tourist trade.  Selfishly, I am very happy about that.  Apart from a busload of Northern European elderly folk clogging up the pavement behind their tour guide in Porto Vecchio, the tourists are low in numbers.  It is strange as I have found Corsica to be very welcoming yet there seem to be few tourists.  I hear that changes in July & August when the swarms of French and Italians arrive. So let me enjoy my space.

Some of my immediate first impressions were that everything is downsized.  Figari Airport, so cute. Porto Vecchio Port – so small, only 4 or 5 seaside restaurants. The small resorts are as I describe, small but comfortable.  Nice restaurants, small hotels and residential/seaside villas.  Nothing big glitzy and “let’s rip off a tourist today”.  It’s not backward but it’s just right for me.  So many holiday resorts these days offer the customer experience.  But who designed that experience?

A lovely story today at lunch.  Apparently the Corsica Separatists arrived at a hotel in the middle of night, asked the guests to board the mini buses before planting bombs and blowing the hotel up. I like the Corsicans!