31 May - 6 June: Corsica

Lost in Corsica
Holidaying in Corsica is a bit like being a castaway on Lost. Although the island is just a few hundred miles off the coast of France, no one seems to know where it is. There are few visitors, little infrastructure, practically no hotels, and not much to do once you get there except “survive” (although unlike Oceania passengers, I managed to drink cold beer and mojitos all week instead of cave water).

My arrival on the island was admittedly less dramatic – overnight a bright yellow ferry, no 747s, dramatic crash, etc. My fellow passengers on the ferry were largely bearded motorcyclists and station-wagon-driving-families on camping holiday. In my mind, like the Oceania passengers they all conveniently died on arrival. I was forced to put up with a young, mini-skirt wearing companion who tagged along for the ride (sadly there was no exciting and dodgy past to discover).

Like my fellow TV survivors, I found that my island (Corsica) has a rugged interior full of misty and inhospitable peaks (the tallest being more than 2500m). The coastline, like Lost, is idyllic: endless curving bays of fine white sand. I raced up mountain passes and along winding roads to get as far away from any Others that I might meet. The locals have a ferocious reputation; it was rumoured that they are wild and dangerous. But I never met the Others. Scary locals are impossible to find.

Just like a peanut
I’d been sitting on the beach for the best part of a week. Being a fair-skinned red headed lad I’d naturally applied large dollops of sun-screen to avoid becoming Perkins flambé. Too cool down on occasion, I plunged my sizzling self into the cold, glass clear Mediterranean several times a day. Shivering I returned to my towel to warm up under the sun’s searing rays. The goose bumps quickly disappeared and the water evaporated leaving me covered with a fine salty patina like some sort of exotic fish dish. I repeated this routine daily until my skin began to turn a shade of nutty brown (okay, here I exaggerate for I’m incapable of being anything more than off-white, but lets for a moment pretend I am).

I was explaining this phenomenal transformation to Ebba one evening, hoping that she would agree with me that I was now looking like some sort of bronzed Adonis. She sipped her beer and gave me an amused, quizzical look. “I think you are more like a peanut: greasy, salty, and perhaps little brown on the outside.”

Pizza, pizza everywhere and nothing else to eat
You would imagine that Corsica would produce heavenly food; a sublime fusion of French and Italian culinary traditions. But whilst the food is delicious, Italy has actually won hands down. The staple Corsican diet is pizza. And it’s everywhere, utterly unavoidable.

On one two-hour stretch of road which meandered mostly through barren countryside, I counted no fewer than 32 pizzerias. There were battered buses parked in rest stops churning out dodgy flatbreads. I saw full-blown gourmet restaurants with food-fired ovens serving up artisanal pies. I passed some rundown cafes dishing up pizza alongside hamburgers and dodgy kebabs. Every town seem to have at least half a dozen pizzerias on the main drag. Never had I seen such pizzerias per capita density and such willingness to eat pizza.

Yet I shouldn’t complain. The pizza was lip-smackingly good. Fine, crispy and thin crusted, these pizzas came topped with scrumptious local goats cheese and smoky Corsican ham. Nevertheless, part of me was a little sad that all this Italian influence had only brought piazza. Where was all the gelati?