After a hearty breakfast in The Marketplace – an all day buffet of every type of food you could want from fast food to carvery, Chinese to Italian, starter to dessert. We spotted “our” LITTLE TRAIN from the balcony and so knew exactly where to head for when ashore.
I’m a big fan of traveling through a city and not having to walk or drive, stopping at some of the important attractions and having a roadside coffee. All at an easy pace! The Little |Train offered two types of trip – long and short – and we chose the longer route and had to haggle seriously to get places when eventually the particular train arrived.
AROUND AZACCIO
The town is famous as the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte who was born here in 1769 and there are few places that do not pay testament to his life – his home, where he was christened, where his brothers lived, etc. Other landmarks such as the Citadel are a memorial to the many wars fought here. Ajaccio was the first French city liberated from the Nazis at the end of
WW2. However, the train buzzed by most sites with little explanation only to stop at the top of the hill at Napoleon’s Grotto.
OUT ALONG THE COAST
The “LONG” trip was about to begin, out along the coastal Routes des Sanguinaires (the road of the Bloodthirsty!) to Pointe de la Parata passing houses of famous actors and singer – none of whom we knew (though they drew Aws and Ahs from the French tourists). We also passed an amazing cemetery, Cimetière d’Ajaccio (a replica of that in the film Double Jeopardy where Ashley Judd was incarcerated in a tomb by her husband). In Ajaccio, the houses of the living are alongside those of the dead and so the dead are interred in rows of monuments. The cemeteries are so much like a city that at the time of the war, the Germans, by mistake, bombed the cemetery.
It was a journey of “musical seats” as the little train swayed from side to side along the road, making sure to hit ever pot-hole! But what a treat at the end: The story told in French about the tower that regulated maritime traffic and the harbor that was used to quarantine the African coral traders was lost on us but the view at the end of the promontory was awesome. And there was some great HOMEMADE NOUGAT for sale in a little van!!!
Back to Ajaccio for coffee and some retail therapy (hat and bag) before embarkation!
We enjoyed sharing stories of the day with Russell, Indu and Brian and hearing about their exploits in Corsica.
