Disembarked at Bastia around 7.30am. It was 23 degrees and overcast.
Found a quayside café for breakfast. Got talking to a Parisian lady schoolteacher, from Fontainebleau who was anxiously waiting for her partner who’d gone off to get a repair done to their motorcycle and had not returned. She was on the island to compete in a big Scrabble tournament. We wished her luck and moved off. After having a quick look-see around Bastia (Corsica’s second city), we headed north along the coastal road of Cap Corse (if you imagine Corsica, looking down, to be your bare left foot, with the four toes cut off, Cap Corse is like a thin extended big toe).
The coastal road is a very scenic road which closely follows the meandering shoreline and passes though several quaint fishing villages.
We bought some lovely local peaches from a girl at the roadside which we ate straightaway on the beach opposite.
A brisk tailwind helped us cover the ground quickly and we stopped around midday at a little port called Macinaggio (inner aspect of big toenail). We took a room in a quayside hotel, Hotel d’Oro.
The brisk wind soon turned into something much more violent which makes us glad that we’d stopped riding for the day. Would’ve been quite hairy to cycle in such a raging gale.
For this evening’s meal, I picked out a nice looking restaurant but was put off it when I read this review on Tripadvisor,

“My meal was nice enough but nothing to write home about.
When my meal was over I stepped out back to where the charcoal grill was, to have a cigarette, and attempted to have a conversation with a local man. It was at this point that the cook came out and started talking to the local and upon hearing me speak English must’ve assumed that I don’t speak French. He was wrong - although not great, I do have a basic understanding and was surprised to hear him refer to me as “Napoleon”. I asked him if he had just called me Napoleon because of my short height and he said yes. The local man then told the cook (I say cook because he operates the grill) that I was English and the cook then said that there were only pubs in England, not restaurants. I corrected him as there are many fine restaurants in England serving food from around the world including French and Italian. He said there were many Italian restaurants but that French were best. I agreed and pointed out that the French restaurants in England were far superior to his grill and left.”
We decided, probably wrongly, to eat somewhere else.
Tomorrow, we aim to cross, west, to the other side (of the big toe) and then head south. Depending on progress, we may or may not cross the ‘Desert des Agriates’ tomorrow. But, if not tomorrow, it’ll be the next day.
It’s still a few days to go before we tackle the mountains (most of Corsica is mountainous but after climbing Mt Ventoux, Alp d’Huez and the Stelvio in recent years, we doubt that there’s much here to fear).