Onward to Piana (sounds just like it’s spelled)

Our next destination on the tour of Corsica is Piana, a small, very small town on the north eastern side of the island. This stop is more for R&R than site seeing but we will stop at an ancient city along the way, Sartene.

Great day for a drive, weather is cooperating with temperatures around 70-75F, no rain and a beautiful coast paralleling the road. The only downside is the F1 drivers practicing their drafting tactics on a road that has a max speed limit of 35mph. We’ve been on winding roads in Ireland and Scotland, but nothing like this road! If I can get the car up to 35mph, its only for a few feet before the next hairpin curve appears. But once you understand that this is how French and Italian people drive, it doesn’t bother you as much.

Part of the ancient tower system

Corsican coastline

First stop, Sartene, considered to be one of the most beautiful towns on Corsica. Today is Saturday and we arrived in Sartene around 11am. Our first goal was to find the free parking lot about 2 blocks from town center, then head off to find a coffee and pastry (but you knew that, didn’t you).

Parked the Maserati and made our way to the main square. We found a very nice coffee shop overlooking the square where we could enjoy a little people watching and our break. Wasn’t a big market, actually only about a dozen tables of various goods and produce, but for a small town, it was doing a good business.

The square in Sartene

Statue dedicated to the children who died for the revolution

The entrance to Old Town (on the right)

After the break, we decided to explore a bit more of the town. Didn’t really understand how all the tourist sites we read could say this is a quaint, ancient city when the square looked pretty modern. Until Collette wanted to look in an archway that had Hotel Ville on it. Tada! The archway led to another part of the city, this part is ancient with narrow, cobblestone streets, small shops. Would have completely missed this had it not been for Collette. Wandering around here didn’t take long, it is a small town, but we did find a nice shop where could get the granddaughters a charm for their bracelets. Good find and a wonderful couple of ladies in the shop, one spoke very good English, always a plus.

Old Town entryway

Street in Old Town

4 levels of doorways

As we were leaving, we noticed the stairs in several places were painted blue. We assumed it was due to a festival of some sort but had to find out so I went back to the charm shop and asked the ladies why these were blue. They explained that there was a music festival 4 months ago and the township gave them permission to paint the steps blue under the agreement it would wash off within 1 month. Well, it’s now been 4 months and the steps are still pretty blue. Don’t think that will be happening again any time soon.

Blue stairs

Back on the road to Piana. The rest of the drive is much like the first part, winding road along the coastline. Very picturesque. Made it to Piana around 4pm in time to check in to the apartment.

Piana, Corsica

The view from the apartment

What a beautiful apartment! Located on the third (top) floor of a small complex, this modern styled apartment has an amazing view of the valley, mountains and ocean. Really awesome view. The décor is modern with nice kitchen, large living / dining room, 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, and 1 unusual toilet room. What’s unusual about the toilet? It was automatic. As you enter the room, the lid opens automatically and a light comes on inside the bowl. There is a remote control (yes, a remote control) that had options for raising the seat, turning on a fan, closing the lid and seat, and several that turned the toilet into a bidet. Never seen anything quite like that.

Living / Dining

True galley kitchen

Bedroom #2

Bedroom #1

After getting over the mechanical john, unpacked our bags, started dinner and had a glass of wine looking out at the sea. Pretty nice day.

As I said, this is an R&R spot for us so not much to write about. We leave here for Ajaccio where we will catch the 8pm ferry to Toulon, France, back on the mainland. I’m sure there will be fun things about the ferry to write up so stay tuned. Don’t touch that dial!