Day One: The Cap Corse

Met Sebastian at Place Nicolas and collected our bikes. He gave us a very through instruction on how they worked and adjusted the saddles. Our travelling luggage fitted in the hired panniers, but oh, how we wished we'd packed less. The e-bike batteries added to the weight and the bikes themselves were like motor scooters.

On the road by 11am and along the busy coast road north. It's already hot, cloudless day. Learning to handle the bikes in traffic was tough especially as we had to stop and start for roadworks etc. Still, we made reasonable progress. Stopped at a lively cage in Erbulunga for cafe and water. We lunched on the beach but chose not to paddle.

At Santa Severa we turned west and on up over the Col Santa Lucia. The ebikes dealt well with the gradients but god help us if we ever run out of power!

We dropped back onto the coast road above Piana then followed the D33 "high road" to Canari. You could see the bell tower for miles looking much further than the 14km we had left to travel. The D33 is a narrow road that runs parallel to the main D80 and links small elevated hamlets. It is considered one of the most scenic rides in Corsica for good reasons. Despite that, it wasn't at all busy and thankfully few motorbikes. Still as wonderful as we remembered - we loved seeing the waterfalls again.

Arrived at our hotel Au Bon Clocher about 5pm. It's a a lovely welcoming family hotel in a charming village high above the west coast. The views of the sun set from the clock tower were amazing. Physically and emotionally tired, we had to heft the bikes up 4 small steps to the safety of the small garden, Then cart the panniers up to our room. We figured out how to remover the bike batteries and put them on charge. Never been so glad to shower and rest!

Refreshed we went down for beer and food. We shared beignets - 6 large, filling cheese dumplings. The warm sea food salad starter was a masterful medley of scallops, squid, fish, mussels, huge prawn and a seafood dip. The cannelloni also looked, tasted and smelt wonderful. After coffee we wondered up to bed, highly content with our first day and looking forward to a shorter ride tomorrow.