The Island Star in Ajaccio, Corsica

Monday 25 August 2008. We are in Ajaccio, Corsica and have arrived back onboard our ship, the Island Star, after a morning's excursion to the Prunelli Gorge and the Tolla reservoir.

We are in our favourite afternoon spot, ready to relax, reading, perhaps taking part in the daily quiz. This is where the little bird crashed into the window yesterday.

Mum has filled her glass too full... Oh dear... Elegance at all times...

The effort has exhausted her...

Time for a quick peek off the side of the ship. On the dockside lorries are queuing up waiting to move onto a ferry.

To one side we have the Girolata, one of the ferries of the La Méridionale fleet. Launched in 2002 she takes 650 passengers and 160 cars and carries 45 crew.

Thomson Destiny is moored next to us on our port side. Built in Helsinki for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, she launched in 1981 and went into service as Song of America. She transferred to Sun Cruises as Sunbird in 1999 and after Sun Cruises ceased trading she was chartered to Thomson in 2005 who called her Thomson Destiny.

Mum meanwhile has woken up and decided she wants a smoothie. Julius the waiter grabs her hand and leads her off to get one... I'm not really sure what she was enjoying the most, the hand holding or the smoothie, but anyway it put a smile on her face for the afternoon.

The lovely little area at the rear of the Island Star gave us great views and was always a busy area.

Time for a quick peek off the stern of the ship. The outskirts of Ajaccio as the hills crowd down towards the sea. Behind them a range of mountains.

Time to set sail and Corsica glides slowly away from us as we head once more into the Mediterranean, bound for Civitavecchia, Italy from where we shall take a trip to Rome.

In the theatre, settling down to watch the show.

Afterwards we end up in the cafe bar having a coffee. I have a latte which is extremely strong! Yuck!

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Highlights of The Mediterranean, 18-25 May 2013 Index Page

A series of articles covering our holiday with David and Miss Jeannie (Creeping Bentgrass on tour!) on the Thomson Dream cruise ship. We'll be calling at Palma, Majorca > Day at Sea > Ajaccio, Corsica > Civitavecchia, Italy > Livorno, Italy > Puccini's house at Torre del Lago, Italy > Pisa, Italy > Villefranche, France > Barcelona, Spain. At some point we'll be treated to a storm with storm force eleven winds and a somewhat rough sea with decks closed and lots of people turning green.

I usually take something like 300 photographs during a week's cruise. David came back with 2000... I have therefore had to be ruthless when it came to selecting photos for these articles unless I was willing to write - and you, dear readers, were willing to read for as long as it took us to live through the cruise!

Each of the photographs below will take you to the related article and photographs.

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Ajaccio Corsica, Napoleon's Birthplace

Monday 20 May 2013. The Thomson Dream heads gently towards the berth at Ajaccio, Corsica.

We watched from the Promenade Deck until we were safely at a standstill and then went down to have breakfast and to get ready for the day. We were just going to get off the ship and look round Ajaccio independently.

David took a photo of the rest of us standing on the waterfront with the Thomson Dream behind us.

We started with a brief glance at the marina before heading up towards the building where Napoleon Bonaparte was born. On the way we wandered through a street market where we found this quite impressive display of olives. Not a big fan of olives - but they will play a further part in this entry.

David! No - seriously!!! Why would you do this to me?!? I was taking a photo of Napoleon's birthplace. As it is a tall building I turned the camera on its side to take a portrait format photo and of course the camera banged on the peak of my cap. So I turned it sideways out of the way for a couple of seconds and the dastardly clicky monster takes advantage... I'll get him back...

The home of Mr and Mrs Bonaparte was above a shop - currently a tanning / health type establishment. I'm not sure which window his first wails came from but the building now houses a museum to Corsica's most famous son.

We returned down to the waterfront and took a road train round the town which dropped us off for 15 minutes at the main monument to Bonaparte also seen above. Fran decided to zizz on the train at this point. Jeannie and I watched as David - the one with the bad knees - charged up the steps of the monument as though storming the massed ranks of Wellington and Blucher at Waterloo. The 15 minutes were fast approaching. We waved at him to come down. He waved back and disappeared around the back of the monument at the top...

We got back to find the driver pinioned within the safe grasp of Miss Franny. "I made him wait!" she said cheerfully. Mopping his tears and taking a reassuring bite of his onion, he bumped us back down the hill...

We went back up through the town to arrive at a pleasant and extensive square with a large statue to some general or other and a modern collection of ponds and fountains. At regular intervals we could hear thunder rumbling at us from over the sea. Yet the sky was clear and sunny. The morning was wearing out and we made our way down back through the town, stopping off to buy a few souvenirs - Miss Franny protects the paintwork of the fridge by completely covering it with fridge magnets.

I stopped to try out the hand-wound music boxes in front of the souvenir shop, turning round to see something of a crowd who had gathered to listen. It's all in the wrist action... Perhaps they don't get out much in Ajaccio - though I suspect many of the onlookers were off either our ship or one of the others that had docked that morning.

I suggested a glass of wine at one of the pavement cafes along the front.
"By heck!" cried David admiringly, "Who are you and what have you done with John Burke?" Tsk! Just because I'm not into spirits or cocktails! Anyway we got a bottle of wine between us and the waiter brought a platter which contained some slabs of toast and a dish of what looked like...
"Did a horse do that?" asked Miss Jeannie.

We decided it was crushed olives - see! I told you they would play a further part in the plot! They looked revolting but they tasted quite nice on the toast. There was still quite a bit left in the dish once the toast was gone and none of us could quite bring ourselves to lick it off the spoon...

We waved goodbye to the glamorous restauranteur who waved cheerily to us then turned to say something foreign to the waiter. I'm not sure... but it could have been "Well done with that horse poo, Claude!"

Highlights of The Mediterranean Cruise Index

Ajaccio, Corsica

Monday, 16 May 2011. The Thomson Destiny sails into Ajaccio on the island of Corsica.

We have not booked an excursion for this day and set off by walking around the harbour, which gives us this great view of the Destiny. Halfway up the chimney stack is a small bar that gives great views in all directions, though with only limited space so after having a look we didn't bother with it again.

The Clipper Bar was our favourite, with its nautical theme and ropes, halliards and mock ratlines as decoration. More or less from the same spot, but taken after twirling round to face the other way. Ajaccio was absolutely lovely.

We walked the full width of the harbour to where the harbour wall sheltered the moorings from the sea and then went back to the centre to explore the town a little.

Old street furniture - one of my great pleasures! Street lighting, signboards, road signs, advertising on walls, bollards, traffic lights, street name plaques... In England the latter are disappearing rapidly from our cities as new modern builds go up and owners or architects refuse to have them "disfigured" by street names. Madness. And maddening for strangers to a town or city, trying to find out where they are in relation to the map they are using.

A last look at the port and harbourside before we head into the town for a look round. There are statues of Napoleon Bonaparte all over the place. He was born in the town over a little shop a short way from the waterfront, which I think was either a dress shop or a tanning salon when we went past it - I should have taken more notice!

This statue has him dressed as a Roman emperor, one of his favourite fantasies so I believe - Josephine must have had an exciting time of it... This diminutive would-be Alexander the Great conquered a sizeable portion of Europe until his march into Russia ended disastrously and even once defeated and imprisoned he managed to escape and gather his devoted armies until he was finally defeated for good by Wellington and Blucher at Waterloo in 1815. Without him where would Sean Bean be today...?

So many inventions and everyday sayings came out of those horrendous war years when the whole of Europe including England were either conquered or convinced it was only a matter of time before he turned his attention their way. Tinned food, rifles, baguettes, "Going off at half-cock", "freezing the balls off a brass monkey" - actually the stand of brass on a fighting ship that held cannonballs ready for use.

We found a small road train and took a trip on it for a couple of hours for a very reasonable price. And look at the phone box too! Nice that a town so proud of Napoleon can find place for a reminder of the country that brought him to a halt!

We sat right at the back of the road train so that every little correction of steering at the front made us sway out into the middle of the road or to the kerb... A small party of French or Corsicans came late and a tiny woman squashed beside me. The commentary wasn't working so well in our carriage so they sang instead, doing drum and symbol noises for added effect. It was very jolly! At first...

The train stopped for photos at a few places then retraced its way along the coast back to where we had got on. The little woman was by now dozing and in grave danger of actually resting her head on my shoulder. I say, this entente cordiale is fair enough, but... with the memsahib sitting on my other side you know...

We returned to the ship and I had time to risk ridicule again by sketching the harbour wall from the Promenade Deck. From Corsica our next stop is Toulon. In Napoleon's time it was a huge French Naval Base - it remains so today, but during NB's war it was the scene in 1793 of a would-be rebellion in favour of restoring the French King which was foiled, resulting in the British Navy under Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, having to scarper as Napoleon retook the city. Napoleon was wounded and missed the brutal massacre of Toulon's rebels. Around 800-2000 people were shot or bayonetted to suppress the rebellion against... er... the rebellion.

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Corsica

Sunday 24 August 2008 was a day at sea on the Island Star. We sat sheltered under the canopy of the upper sundeck and the only incident of note was mid afternoon in the middle of the Mediterranean when there was a loud thwack! and a small bird, the size of a sparrow, but bright green in colour, fell onto the table right in front of Fran. The poor thing had flown over the ship, thought to swoop over the pool and out through the side and crashed into the window which it couldn't see.

It was stunned unsurprisingly and to give it a chance I picked it up and moved it to a quieter spot away from the sun deck, wondering whether it would recover. Around half an hour later I was just about to go to look at it again when we saw it fly off, probably a little pained and puzzled!

Monday 25 August 2008 saw us docking in Ajaccio, Corsica and we took an excursion to see the Prunelli Gorge.

Getting out of the coach we soon found that this was no mighty Cheddar Gorge, but it had some nice views none-the-less and the advantage of a little bridge that we could look over the edge and completely block to traffic...

There was a stream tumbling merrily over the rocks at the bottom, but the bottom just didn't seem all that far below us somehow!

Next we came to the Tolla reservoir. We were all getting ready for something to drink and apparently that's our next stop! So with that in mind we posed for photos at the reservoir!

I'll just put the one up here, but every possible combination had to be done...

The reservoir gets its name from the town of Tolla, which is around halfway down the reservoir. The restaurant we visited is further down almost at the end of the reservoir.

We stopped for a cafe break here, where we (a bit to my surprise) were able to get a drink including a cup of tea for Mum.

I was expecting getting drinks - it was the availability of tea that surprised me.

I went for a short walk as someone said there was a spectacular view of a dam at the end of the reservoir. This is looking back at the restaurant.

Then a fast-paced walk over rough paths high above the road.

And at the point where I was starting to wonder whether I had time to get there and back before the coach was due to leave, I find this small unguarded concrete platform right on the edge of the precipice overlooking the dam of the reservoir. Not for those who suffer from vertigo!!!

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