CORTE

After having spent the first night of our sojourn in Ajaccio, we went on to Corte, which at one time was the capital of Corsica in the time of Pascual Paoli, president of independent Corsica for a couple of handfuls of years in the 18th. century. These two pictures are of his house, still pock marked. Corte is a stronghold of Corsican nationalism.

As can be seen from the photos, Corte has a considerable fortress at its centre.

After lunch, we went for a walk in the hills, before coming back and having a pretty good Corsican dinner. Corsican food specialities are distinctive and Italian-styled. Wild boar stew is a favourite, walnuts are popular, there's lots of pastas, chestnuts seem to find their way into many dishes and coppa is everywhere - rather drier than we are used to. The local aperitif is Cap Corse, a sweetened red wine flavoured with herbs. We found Corsican wines surprisingly easy to drink. We must be on the lookout for them here on the mainland. Something else we discovered was cedrat - a citrus fruit and ancestor of lemons. It (mainly the thick skin) is used for flavouring all sorts of dishes and we bought a cedrat bush for Ruth's birthday. Let's hope it lives!