Hello from Corsica and Elba

Leaving the Cote d'Azur, we had the option of a bumpy ride due to high waves but good wind or a windless day with flat waters the following day. We took the windier option simply due to the fact that we bought a sailing boat and not a motor yacht. We also prefer the sound of wind and water instead of the engine.

During our 16 hours sailing trip across to Corsica we only saw 2 small sailing yachts out in the ocean. This was a nice uneventful trip and both of us are lucky (fingers crossed) to not have been seasick so far.

We replaced glamour and glitz from the Cote d'Azur to a 5 km sandy bay in Calvi / Corsica. We had the bay all to ourselves and the restaurants are pretty empty as we entered low season.

We have anchored in many places in Corsica and Elba. We will mention just a few of them.

Corsica (France) Calvi

After over 2 years I am finally back to my Natural hair colour (so is Sven 😊 ).

On arrival we decided to take a buoy rather than anchor (you string 2 ropes from each side through it).

Calvi is a town on the northwest coast of Corsica. You can see the medieval citadel overlooking the bay. It has typical cobbled streets leading through it. The Baroque St-Jean-Baptiste Cathedral is in the middle of it. Restaurants line the harbour on the Quai esplanade.

The plan was to stay one night only, however we liked it and decided to stay longer.

The way into the harbour and citadel from the front:

The Citadel once inside the bay and our boat in front.

A bonus for staying in the bay 😊 was that we had our own revolving restaurant yet again (our boat turning slowly around the buoy showing us different views during our evening drinks)

On one side we could see this beautiful town, the lovely beach and the gorgeous mountain ranges on the other.

Sven is grilling on the BBQ - a place with a great view!

Quick simple breakfast before heading onshore for a grocery trip and walk.

A few more pictures of Calvi

and our "lonely" boat in the bay

Just loved the mountain view when getting up

The small chapel of Notre-Dame de la Serra with its white Madonna has panoramic views of the area. It was a pleasant hike once we were on the right track (400m up only). However, somehow we managed to end up with Blackberry scratches on arms and legs when we took a wrong turn. We were afterwards told off by a women in French for trespassing .

Sven still not feeling satisfied, wanted to climb a steep mountain another 4 hours there and back. I decided to call it a day and met him later for dinner. On top of the mountain the only 2 other hikers were, according to Sven, two gorgeous young women chatting him up. One of them even gave him a business card saying something about “God” . He showed it to me and we scanned the barcode (only item on the card). Turns out it was a card to get free bible lessons.

Next stop was Marina de Saint Florent for one night.

Saint Florent, Corsica

By day and night... (our boat is on the right)

... and in the evening a .few steps from restaurant to our boat 😊

Some street impressions:

A panorama iphone photo from the hill overlooking St Florent.

Lesson learned - drink aperitif quickly if you are hungry. We ordered a beer for Sven and an Aperol Spritz for Caroline, sipping slowly and waiting and waiting for our dinner to arrive. After dinner did not arrive we enquired about the status and were told that they were waiting for us to finish our drinks first.

We got a little extra surprise, when pulling up our anchor in a small fishing harbour. Our anchor had old ropes and a small buoy attached to it. Lucky for us we managed to get it off easily. Another boat had a similar problem the day before. The owner had to dive into the cold water to cut the buoy loose with a knife.

Something new for us, we saw Cows on beaches, wild pigs on the road and cows right in front of the butcher shop - can't get any fresher than that! (For the none French speaking - boucherie means butcher).

Cows at beach and pig photo was not taken by us.

We also hired a car for a couple of days to visit various places on Corsica Island.

Bonifacio

We really liked Bonifacio which is on the southern tip of Corsica.

We walked up these old stairs into the old town

The white cliffs of Bonifacio are amazing.

Sven checking out the Bonifacio Marina.

And a photo from the boat.

Join us on our boat for the entry into the port. Click on video below to watch time laps:

And a few explorations by dinghy.

An advantage with the dinghy is that we can explore little caves. This one was such a lovely surprise. Once we drove through the entrance we suddenly saw light coming in and spotted this opening on the roof.

We anchored in a bay which was a short dinghy ride away from Bonifacio. We had this lovely beach and bay all to ourselves.

it is getting cooler again up in the mountains and we had to layer up.

We decided to go for a hike in Aiguilles de Bavella. The drive was a zigzag up the mountain - check out the street corner on the first picture and how difficult it is to see what is around the corner on the third one. Reminded us of Swiss mountain drives.

Autumn is here ... colours started to change.

One of many hikes in Alta Rocca.

Ajaccio

Ajaccio is the capital of Corsica. We did not enjoy it as much as Bonifacio. It is Napoleons birthplace and we went to check out where he lived (middle picture below).

Whilst some villages and cities are really colourful others are in the same style and colour.

Porto Veccio

We stayed a few nights in the Marina of Port Veccio. The Bakery van was parked near our boat. At 8 am in the morning the places around the church in the Citadel were still empty.

A few more stops. Check out the green rocky island we passed sailing along the coast of Corsica

We did walk to a lovely old village near Macinaggio - you can see our boat alone in a bay on both pictures.

We also visited Torre di Santa Maria Chjapella, a ruined Genoese tower in the commune of Rogliano – built in 1548-1549 as a coastal defence (this is one of many built to stem attacks by Barbary pirates) . It was partially destroyed in 1794 by British warships during the French Revolutionary wars. Sven is standing on the left.

Another lovely view during one of our walks.

Elba Island (Italy)

Tuscan Archipelago, (we raised the Italian Flag) According to legend, Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, emerged from the waters adorned with a gleaming pearl necklace, from which fell seven pearls into the sea, forming seven stunningly beautiful isles in the Tyrrhenian Sea: Elba, Giglio, Capraia, Giannutri, Gorgona, Montecristo, and Pianosa.

Elba is the largest island of the Tuscan Archipelago. Elba is famous for being Napoleon’s place of exile in 1814-15. You can still visit the house he lived in whilst in exile.

We read that it is the best time to visit Elba -good weather, no tourists etc.

Our crossing from Corsica to Elba showed us how quickly nature can change. The forecast when we left showed good weather condition but suddenly the sky turned really black. We already had a reef (reduced sail) in our mainsail but decided immediately to take sails down. It was the right call as the wind got really strong and just like that we got caught in our first thunderstorm during a trip (we had other storms but were hiding in a bay on anchor during those). Better not to think of “What if” the lightening strikes our boat…. Lucky for us it passed quite quickly and the boat got a good wash too.

You can see us being the dot and right in the middle of it.

We also anchored in Campo nell Elba a small commune on the island of Elba, in the province of Livorno in the Italian region of Tuscany.

Here we left our dinghy onshore and used our wheels we installed a while ago. Sven pushed it around and parked it nearly like a car. We also saw other "boat wheels" - check out second picture below.

The last picture shows impressive colours of the clouds at sunset.

We also hired a car in Elba and drove around the Island.

We stopped in many places but will post some of our favourites.

Capoliveri

The villages look similar everywhere. We just loved the colours of the houses.

Portoferraio is the Capital of Elba

Does anybody know what kind of fish these are? There were many swimming under our boat. They looked like Needlefish but were too small. They were only about 8 cm long.

Au Revoir Corsica - Arrividerci Elba

The night before our departure to Sardinia - Sven drinking a glass of wine enjoying the view.

We have just arrived in Sardinia - more from here soon.,

❤️ Sending our love to you our families and friends ❤️ ❤️ Thanks for being part of our adventure ❤️