We get a taste of this right away as we leave Corte and head north to a small mountainside village called Castirlu. The road clings precipitously to the mountain side as it approaches the town.
After Castirlu we join up with D84 for the drive through the Scala dI Santa Regina. The road is a narrow 10 km ribbon through a canyon. Apparently this was a completely impassable route until Napoleon had prisoners come up into the mountain to blow up enough rock to allow space for a road. It's a gorgeous but slightly terrifying drive as you often don't know what's coming around the next corner and if it's a large vehicle like a bus, there may not be enough room to pass safely.
Fortunately, we make it through with only a few vehicles heading in our direction.
Leaving the canyon we arrive in the Vallee de Niolo, a sheltered valley high in the Corsican mountains that is one of the least visited but most beautiful places in Corsica.
We're here to spend the night in the town of Calacuccia but unfortunately we have shown up a little too late to visit the tourist office and a little too early to check into our pension, Casa Balduina.
We decide to stop for lunch at the local bar. A couple of people are eating what looks like small pizzas. I look at the menu and realize, since pizzas are not identified anywhere, that the dish I'm looking for is bruschetta (in this case pronounced with a "sk" sound).
I order one with tomato sauce, ham, mozzarella and gruyere cheeses. It's basically a pizza on top if a large but reasonably thin slice of country bread. It's a very tasty cross between a normal pizza and the bruschetta that we are normally used to (you know, the one with the "sh" sound).
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