Today was a significant tested for me.
First there was the endurance. I set off around eight and arrived after six, with lunch the only significant break — and that was less than an hour. The terrain was steep, with both climbs of over a thousand meters and descent of the same, meaning that it wasn’t just the distance that was battering my feet.
The first day of walking was to take me from Sermano to Corte. I was driven to the start by taxi along the scary, narrow lanes that surround Corte.
It doesn’t take long before things start to go wrong. Crossing a stream I manage to put my whole foot in the water, fortunately only fleetingly and so I am not completely waterlogged.
The plan today is to get to Corte. There are two trains a day, which effectively means that I have to choose between sightseeing in Ajaccio or Corte — with daylight hours fading fairly early there would be no time to do both. Since I’m back in Ajaccio on Friday evening I decide to take the early train.
As I fly over it, I note the vivid blue-green colour of the water as it glistens in the midday sun. This is not the Mediterranean as I approach Corsica but the English Channel shortly after leaving from London City airport. It’s amazing how the sun enhances even the most seemingly mundane scenes.
It’s three hours and a change of plane in Paris before I see Corsica for real. In fact it was cloudy and only visible for the last few minutes of the descent. First impressions: very hilly, mountainous even. The cream houses scattered near the coast are attractive and give the impression of a place that is in the south of France or Tuscany.
“Why?” It’s rapidly becoming the question that people ask when I announce my next travel destination, and my Christmas in Iceland trip was no exception.
To be fair I did have doubts. Having spent a winter in Norway a few years ago I was expecting short daylight hours, cold and snow. And it was Christmas so I was expecting a few things to close. But I was also expecting some wonderful, directional light, ideal for photography; I was expecting crisp, blue skies and pristine snow; I was expecting cozy bars and restaurants; and I was expecting to see the Northern Lights.
I’ve been reading the magazine Wanderlust for a few years now. It’s a great magazine with interesting stories about places that are often well off the beaten path — my kind of travelling! A couple of months ago I took the unusual step of writing a letter. It came in two parts, a comment about my time in Cuba (in response to someone who said he couldn’t find any night-life) and a second, longer piece about my time in Gdansk, Poland (as a counter-point to their piece on long-weekends for less than ?100).
The company where I (currently) work is always trying to get people to transfer over to the New York office. There are a number of personal reasons why I didn’t want to do that, however the main reason was always that it — basically — just didn’t appeal. It really didn’t seem to be very much different from London, where I currently live, but, well, more. So when I visited New York in April I was not expecting to like it very much.
It’s easy to get the wrong impression of Vietnam. Switch on the TV and you find films showing vast areas of land being napalmed. Switch on the radio and you hear Paul Hardcastle. Even in books you see self-immolating monks.
But the place is not all about the Vietnam War (or the American war as they call it). In fact there was little sign of it in the parts that I saw. Insead you see a beautiful, enthusiastic country that’s full of contradictions. You see successful small businesses, you learn that health-care and education is paid-for yet you know the government is officially Communist.
Some people seem to think that I visit new places just so that I can increment my Country Count. I guess going to three countries in one weekend a couple of years ago doesn’t do much to dispel that accusation, but it’s not true. What can I say? I like to see new places.
create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands
Having said that, hopefully I’ll hit my thirtieth country this year!
Last year I went on a walking holiday in France with two friends. We started in Nice, got the train to Sospel and then walked to the coast at Menton. Between them we saw some beautiful scenery, drank some lovely wine and ate fantastic food. I can’t share the alcohol or steak, but you can see the pictures…
We started the week in Nice. I’d heard great things about the place but, on the whole, I wasn’t terribly impressed. I’ll be positive and say this is probably because they were digging the whole town up to install a new tram system, or because we didn’t spend very much time there. Anyway, this means that there are no decent pictures.