Calvi, in a few steps

Calvi is a beautiful town, no question. I can’t provide pictorial evidence of that right now because it’s raining to beat the band and I didn’t bring the camera with me, but take my word for it, it’s spectacular. A 20-km bay with white sand and blue sea, capped on each tip by rocks and on our end a citadel, backed by mountains, and 50% of the time a clear blue sky.

Note the percentage

It’s been sporadically nice here; yesterday was alternately 3 hours of rain and 3 hours of sun, today was 6 sun, and rain since, and if the pattern holds I expect clear sky by sundown. Char and I took yesterday to walk to the top of the second hill in from the sea, where there is a small 19th-century fort (the dates on the wall indicate 1849-1852 for construction) that is completely derelict now. We simply walked in through the front gate, and poked into all of the rooms. More pictures will come from that, but suffice to say that there were bits of it that were genuinely creepy. There was a room, third and last in a series of high-ceilinged subterranean chambers, with a window high in the west wall admitting indirect sunlight, with red paint handprints covering the whole wall, around the room, as high as a child could reach. Char has pictures of it, so you can see it later, but I won’t lie: I felt a chill seeing that, and even I know it was just some kids spooking it up.

Today was snorkeling. Both Char and I were fine on the boat, but it turns out we’re both prone to mild seasickness when IN the water. Who knew?