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Extract
Corsican Extract from Come to the Table – Louise Luiggi – Piatkus £7.99
I remember my first sighting of Calvi’s citadel, rising above the sea, as I admired the bobbing yachts and fishing barques lined up in the harbour below. The sparkling sea was churned into a frothing white mousse as our ferry crawled heavily towards its target. The backdrop of undulating, craggy mountains, the distant huddles of homes and churches clasping the mountainsides precariously, filled me with breathless awe, an indescribable urge to conquer, to unearth the wonders of this unspoilt island. Corsica has a happy thumbs-up shape that always makes me smile whenever I see this confident outline, perfectly suited to these proud, insular islanders. You can clearly see a hand with the fingers clasped tightly, the thumb raised, confirming that everything is OK. It’s one of those islands that on paper appears small and easy to get around, wickedly deceiving visitors, misleading them into making careless plans, cruelly unaware of the steep, winding, dangerously neglected roads, their adventurous car journeys so easily capable of being transformed into disaster. Particularly deceptive and unforgiving is the time it takes to get from one place to the next, which is why many villagers never move farther than the neighbouring town, where they buy what they need and then happily return home. This is also why, in Corsica, once a Northerner you are always a Northerner, with no reason to visit the South. There is no significant movement between either end of the island, nor a great deal of love lost between North and South. A healthy rivalry exists in the competition for the essential tourist trade, the hazardous mountainous terrain in the centre of the island drawing a useful defensive line, keeping either end confined within its own well-defined zone. Travel is not easy, and has certainly not moved on even into the twentieth century. The coastline train, the Micheline, which trundles between the seaside villages and the major shopping towns, is not the most comfortable or the most speedy way of getting around the island, often slowing to a halt every now and then to let ponderous, lazy cows wander over the track. In summer, with the windows and doors wide open in an attempt to let in some welcome cooling air, the comfort is reduced considerably, often completely disappearing when the train is transformed into a human cargo wagon with perspiring bodies pressed against each other like sardines, anxiously awaiting the jolt that signals that the train has finally come to a grinding halt.