Day 155: Peace and Quiet in Corsica — Joanna and Dave Arrive!
Ah, Corsica. Corsica played a critical part in my love of France…
Back in 1993, when I was 14 and my parents made to do an exchange, I spent two weeks with a French family at their vacation house in northern Corsica (Sant’Ambroggio between Bastia and Calvi).
I dreaded it but ended up having the time of my brace-faced life. The host daughter and I didn’t exactly gel, but I befriended her younger cousin (still a friend) and we spent our days on her family boat/picnic’ing on secluded cove beaches and our nights sneaking into the next-door Club Med to dance at the discotheque with the other 14-year-olds there from Paris on vacation.
It was, obviously, awesome.
It sparked a love of the Mediterranean. I’ve since spent a lot of time visiting this part of the world since, but I’ve never been back specifically to Corsica. When we decided to include Europe in this world adventure, I insisted on coming here.
We used a UK holiday rental agency to find this house, which has been great. It isn’t fancy, but it’s very new, clean, not cheesy. It has beautiful view, peaceful pool/deck and modern kitchen etc.
The house sits on a big farm-like property with a few other small houses, all owned by the same family. We can all walk to the beach from there.
We chose one with an extra bedroom in the hopes that we could lure a friend to come stay with us — and it worked. Joanna and Dave arrive tonight for the week!
Joanna is one of my closest friends and James’s godmother. We met doing the Middlebury masters in French back in 2004, so there’s a shared love of France and French there.
As for the day, we spent it doing school in the morning, enjoying our deck and pool, and then walking out to sit on Palombaggia Beach for a few hours.
The beach is pretty, with that super clear water and sand underfoot. The kind of water perfect for kids because it’s endlessly shallow, very calm and super clean. Ahhhh.
I actually came up to the house before everyone else to read my book — I’m still on my Spain book, “Or I’ll Dress You in Mourning” — while floating on a raft in the pool for an hour.
It was about as close to heaven as I’ve been in a while — total peace and quiet, not too hot but perfectly warm, sturdy comfortable raft, birds chirping, great book, no kids…. someday in 2020 when I’m sitting in a winter NYC office building I’ll be dreaming about that moment.
We had a casual dinner and got the kids to bed after finishing “A Cricket in Times Square.” But not before meeting the horses whose corral abuts our backyard.
Around 10 pm, Joanna and Dave pulled up to the house!! They’d spent the weekend in Paris and Normandy visiting friends (and almost didn’t make it to Corsica after mistakenly going to Orly instead of CDG!!)
But they’re here and we’re so happy. Yay!
