We left Olbia at 8am to ride the 60 km to our ferry in Santa Teresa Gullura. The ride was a lovely start to the day with the sun shining and the roads climbing over the hills before descending to the coast. Sardinia has been great but it is time to move on. We watched the ferry pull in to the port and unload. We were first to ride on and soon we were on our way. The trip was only 50 minutes and nice and smooth.

The arrival in to Bonifacio, Corsica is spectacular. High cliffs and caves along the coast line and fortifications on top of the cliffs. We rode off the ferry after a few happy snaps as this was not our destination for the day.

We rode north about 40km to Porto Vecchio, another town with a beautiful marina. Our hotel is between the marina and the town. We wandered down to the marina first and checked out the menus for dinner tonight. As well as the marina, this part of Porto Vecchio also boasts a wide area of salt pans. After purchasing a couple of postcards, it was time to visit the town. It is at the top of a hill - only a 10 minute walk - so up we went. By the time we got to the top it was beer o'clock so we tried a local Corsican brew - Pietra - not impressed, give us Sardinian 'Itchy' beer or a Greek Fix any day. We found a boulangerie for lunch and after quiche for Kerrie and a baggette for Greg we were ready to explore. The town is surrounded by an old city wall with an entry gate called the Piazza di Po'. The Place de Republic is dominated by a church, Eglise St-Jean-Baptiste, built in 1868. This time the church had piped music which we thought was a nice touch. The town is almost Italian in appearance (don't tell the French) with small side streets filled with tourist shops and restaurants. After wandering for a couple of hours it was down the hill to our hotel for some future planning time and a little rest before dinner.

Porto Vecchio was also the starting place for the 2013 Tour de France, this must have been a big deal as the posters are still on display around the town. As well as this there is a round of the tennis Masters coming up on the 8th and 9th of May which features Boris Becker, Bjorn Borg, Henri Leconte and some other guy we have never heard of (Greg has just googled him - Mansour Bahrami from Iran). We have also discovered that Jorge Lorenzo was fastest in free practice for the MotoGP at Jerez. As well as the betting that must have taken place around the birth of William and Kate's daughter - I hope this is enough sport to keep you going for now Kelly!

We left Porto Vecchio about 9am next morning and headed north along the east coast of Corsica. Beside us on the left were snow topped peaks and on the right, vineyards and the coast. Our ride was only about 140km today and our destination - Bastia to catch the ferry back to mainland Italy in the morning. Our hotel - Le Forum - looks about the same vintage as the Forum in Rome but is clean and central to the port. Our walk down to the port to collect our ticket for the ferry opened up a part of Bastia that we did not know about from our hotel. The large square down by the port was busy with Saturday afternoon family time. Children were playing soccer and basketball or riding bikes and scooters while their watchful parents relaxed with a drink in the shade of the restaurant awnings - very civilised. there was a small train taking tourists up the hill to the fortification so we decided to go for a ride. The scenery was beautiful and I'm sure the commentary was very informative but as it was only in French we are still no wiser about what we saw. We can't even show you the photos as our battery on the camera decided to go flat and we can't download the ones we took on Greg's phone - too technical for us to work out!

After collecting our ferry ticket we found a restaurant among the locals and settled in for a bottle of rose and the opportunity to watch the Rugby European Champion's Cup on the big screen featuring two French teams - Clermont and Toulon. The waiter was going for Clermont but sadly for him Toulon won 24-18. We didn't mind as two well known Australian players, Matt Giteau and Drew Mitchell were playing for Toulon.

The hotel tonight was without doubt the worst we have had and no bargain. The only good thing about it was its proximity to the port. We left the hotel to catch the ferry at 6:30 to board the ferry almost straight away. While waiting to board a group of motorcyclists on a tour with Adriatic Tours pulled up and it wasn't long before we were talking to the 3 Australians riding with the group. They are doing a 16 day tour of Italy, Sardinia and Corsica and were very jealous when we told them how long we are touring for.

The ferry departed Bastia on time at 8am and the crossing to Livorno took about 3 and 1/2 hours.

Corsica was nice to visit, we probably missed things we should have seen but you always do! We must say that the prices on this little island were much higher than we expected so we are pleased to be on our way back to Italy.