GR20 Rest Day (2) Corte.

Hey all,

what a lovely little town Corte is. The locals are for the most part really nice – certainly a lot more polite than at Bastia, which, like most coastal resort towns, is a bit full of itself. If you are ever in Corsica, make sure you visit it – have really enjoyed it – the Hotel de la Paix, where I was last night, was cheap, friendly, and nice – the hotel where I am today is much the same – both are two star joints – and after the last week or so feel like almost unimaginable luxury. Got myself some new socks, which I needed – Irish had advised me to get less woolly ones than I usually do – so I got a couple of pairs of thinner ones – stocked up on blister silicone stuff, did my washing in the hotel sink, wandered around, found a nice church, bought some presents for the folks, found some good cheap cigars, went to the Citadel and had a look at it and the small museum that it is a part of, chatted to K on the phone and bumped into English hippy and entourage who were also having themselves a rest day. Saw an interesting version of the last supper at the Citadel museum, Judas with a bag of money looking away from the Lord, as well he might.

Basically feeling clean, healthy, revived. Also bought one of those cheap foam camping mats to insulate the bottom of the hammock – I was getting away with it just by stuffing clothes underneath me on the first couple of days, but is getting chilly, and up high have had a couple of miserable nights with the cold getting through. Tomorrow I will go to the post office, send off the presents, and with any luck finally recharge the next to useless 3G internet key as there is an official recharge station at the post-office, and if they can't figure it out then I guess it can't be done and I will just chuck the thing away. Then get the train back to Vizzavona, camp the night there (or maybe do a stage, depending on what time I get there) and then back into it. Looking forward to it now that I have cleaned up a bit. Lots of big bore adventure tourers roaming the streets here – KTM, BMW, Honda – gorgeous bikes – and no wonder – this whole island must be a goldmine of rough tracks.

Photos. 1. A nice church. 2. The main street is on the other side of those buildings – but I liked the way they looked from here. 3. Looking down on Corte from the Citadel. 4. Not entirely sure why they built the Citadel – maybe they were just frightened of the mountains – which is perfectly reasonable... 5. It is an impressive building, but when you get into it you can see that to a certain degree they have just whacked a facade onto the granite fortress that was basically already there – upper left, middle, and lower right – you can see the mountain itself. 6. The dungeon. I watched a bloke enter. He stopped. Peered down the stairs. Looked behind him. Looked at the door. Slowly walked down the steps. I realised that I had done the same when I went in. It radiated menace. 7. Just a building that I thought was cool. 8. I wasn't joking about tearing up “In the First Circle” as I read it – which seems extreme and obsessive until you look at the photos for day four.

Cheers, B.