Is THAT a Genoese bridge?

I end each day on this trip writing about the day before. It's very confusing.

Thursday night was something. Meaning Friday morning was something I would like to forget. We were obviously a little slow moving getting out the door, which normally wouldn't be a bad thing except we were en route to Bastia to drop off our dead weights...I mean our friends...for their return home. In the rush, we just dropped off our keys at reception, and later learned (via nasty email) that in addition to forgetting to give them their gate opener, we also somehow did not pay them for the second night (though more their fault than ours). Combine this with our raucousness on Thursday night, and we seriously left an (awesome) impression on Saint Florent.

Despite some sweating, The Heff and La Mer made their flights (we think?) with no problem, and Liza and I pulled over for some breakfast and to make a plan. Much props to the pizzeria next to the Bastia airport.

We decided to start our adventure into the mountains with a drive through the Vallee d'Asco, the northernmost of Corsica's valleys, known for it's sweeping views and Genoese bridges. It didn't take us long into the drive to realize we may have finally found Old Zealand. There could not possibly be more parallels between the two countries. That's a snobby thing to say, and i can admit that.

It was only like 50 years ago that they actually cut a rug...I mean road...through this valley in order to accommodate skiers. We had some lunch in the main town overlooking the mountains, and enjoyed some traditional Corsican food: a tarte, almost like a quiche, but with corsican cheese, mint, and their "local" spinach aka swiss chard; and a pasta salad-esque-ish dish that was delish-ish. After a couple frolicking photos we moved on to find some highly recommended pools under a Genoese bridge that we thought might have been every other bridge we crossed before that until we actually crossed a Genoese bridge. We hiked down to the water, and I was super proud of our hike (until our hike today, but more on that later). We passed a few wild cows, and kept our eyes peeled for the native mouflon -- which i thought was a bearded vulture but is actually a horned sheep (not sure if they have beards or not)

After a bit. we jumped back in the car and back tracked our way towards Corte, the largest town in the middle of Corsica. En route we passed two wineries, and who are WE to say no to some wine tasting? This brings total vineyards visited to 7, and I said earlier this week I wanted to make it to 10. Feeling good about that now.

Our lodging for our time in the center is high in the hills only 10 km outside Corte. Well, only 10 km if you're a wild cow and can walk straight there, but for humans it actually is closer to 20. But the views are incredible. Once we arrived, it was pretty clear we were done with adventure for the day, so settled into the hotel with a snack on our terrace, a much needed nap, and then house-made dinner in the dining room.

When we first arrived, there was some confusion by the house owner as to why a very young, hot American would be showing up claiming to have a reservation being that they were expecting an old Italian grandmother (all was cleared up when they saw old lady Liza). Once that was taken care of, the house owner, Pascale showed us around, using amazingly perfect English. I mention this only because when we arrived for dinner at 8:30, after a nice stroll through the village, Pascale was MIA, and a mean old lady had taken her place.

About 30 minutes after we sat down we realized we had been set up on a double date with a Dutch couple who spoke English. We never got their names so we'll call them Ingrid and Bjorn. They loved that I took Dutch (fact) in college and remembered nothing except about their version of Santa Claus (look it up), and that we thought they lived in a meadow and smoked pot and rode bikes and had prostitutes for a living. NONE WAS TRUE??? WHAT!?

After another amazing meal, we retired to our quarters (but not before mentioning ten times that Liza had a boyfriend since we are pretty sure everyone thinks we're a couple...not sure why), and slept. The end.

Bottles of wine:
1 (we focused on beers)

Wines tasted:
8

Bearded mouflon seen
0

Genoese bridges crossed
possibly 100

Things Dutch people like:
stripes (US TOO OMG)

Times we can ever go back to Saint Florent:
0

Oh Wow moments in the mountains
infiniti