Corsica -Bonifacio

Bonifacio is a town originally established on a cliff in 828 by, who else but, Bonifacio, Marquis of Tuscany who saw the spot on the way back from Africa to Tuscany.  I am not sure what was going through his mind at the time, but when I see a cliff almost inaccessible from the sea, I don’t immediately think, why don’t I go in, subdue the locals and build a town.  I guess that is why I am a tourist taking photos of a town named after him. It was not an immediate success, existing for the next 350 years on fishing and piracy until the Genoese took over and built the walls and the fortifications which you can see in this photo.

   

View over the fortifications to Bonifacio Harbour

Judging by the prices and the amount of fish for sale in the restaurants, it still clings to its traditions.

  

The Grain Seen from Bonifacio

The town changed hands a few times between the French and the Genoese, just like the rest of Corsica, but still retains an Italian flavour, if only for the food and the Italian tourists.

The cliffs are chalk, just like the white cliffs of Dover, but they are an anomaly in a country which is almost entirely granite and other volcanic rocks (more of that later).  The coast has some similarities to the Victorian coast along the great ocean road, with stranded rocks such as this one which is known as “The Grain” and was first separated from the mainland around 800 years ago.

Today Bonifacio is mainly a tourist town and a port for pleasure craft.  When we visited in the evening there was a very large pleasure boat in the harbour

the word around town was that it was owned by someone from St Petersburg.

One of the many beaches

Sylvie took us off the beaten path along a track down the coast which allowed us to gain an appreciation of the many inlets, passages and cliffs.  The water is extraordinary with every shade of blue. The small beaches like this one are generally almost empty, but today was the beginning of the two month tourist season.

As the water remains shallow for a considerable distance out from the beach it is warm.  The sun is hot, but does not seem to burn as does the sun in Australia (believe me, it is my expert area gained from many years of experience and painful observation).

We visited several of the beaches along the coast between Porto Vechio and Bonifacio, and the first impression on arrival at each was that the place was crowded with water craft, swimmers, power boats, ferries, surf-skis and any other available water sport.  However, when I tried to take a photo of the chaos, I found something like this:-

---- space for all and plenty of room between.

All the beaches have similar not too cold water, shallow calm seas and plenty of areas to swim, play or just lie around and get very burnt, which seems to be the objective of many of the French, Italian and German tourists. 

My overwhelming impression is of red skin.

More photos of Bonifacio at  this link https://picasaweb.google.com/108747678948303227160/BonifacioCorsica?authkey=Gv1sRgCL3Z9Of41dijygE