Ferry love from Nice to Corsica

After the last two columns addressing issues political (here and here), and with the world’s eyes irresistibly drawn to the upcoming US elections and all that will mean for both Americans and the world in general, it was something of a relief to take a bit of time off last week and indulge in one of my occasional delights.

I am of course talking about having the opportunity to take a ferry once again and satisfying my love of those workhorses of the sea, this time from Nice to Corsica.

It is a journey we have taken before, though not as a family, and this time we did not go as pedestrians but took the car. It was an overnight ferry so we also did something new for me: we took a cabin, and we slept the hours away in comfort (as opposed to being stuck on a bench on the main deck) as we were transported slowly across the Baie des Anges and out into the Mediterranean Sea.

I am always impressed to watch, and even more so to participate in, the intricate ballet that is loading hundreds, if not thousands, of vehicles into the bowels of the great metal beast, which seems more like a cross between a giant car park and a cathedral once you are inside, and line them up ready for an equally efficient unload at the other end.

Unlike on previous trips, we did not tour the decks, survey the assortment of food and drink on offer and check out the gift shop (despite knowing that we would buy precisely nothing), but headed straight for our cabin. We were placed fairly close to the engine room, so our slumbers were accompanied by deep vibrations and a perpetual rumble but it was not enough to stop us falling almost immediately asleep.

The ferry approached Bastia just before dawn, and standing out on deck in the quiet calm of a still morning as we slid past the old town and towards the port, I was reminded of my father’s insistence when I was a lazy teenager that the early morning is the best part of the day, and to get up late is to miss it.

There is a beauty in seeing the sky brighten as the sun approaches the horizon, when the world is delivered from the quiet death of night to the teeming bustle of day. In those hours, there is a delicacy. The breath of nature hangs in the air. Sounds that will be drowned out by human activity in only an hour or two can be heard and birds that escape the harsh light of day fill the air.

A few days later, we were back in Bastia, heading to the quay to join the hundreds of other vehicles ready to make the return journey to Nice. This time, however, we replaced the romance of sleeping onboard and the prospect of a dawn arrival to another land with the chilly reality of a 7:30am sailing.

We were required to be there an hour ahead, which meant getting just before 4am so we could drive the two hours from our holiday accommodation and still get there in time.

That kind of weariness, which tugs at you in whatever you do and casts everything a pallid light, makes the world and all that inhabits it seem empty and worthless.

The weather, which was much more autumnal than it had been just one week before, didn’t help and we were simply glad to get the car on the boat and watch the ferry cast off. Home was our target now, not the thrill of exploring new destinations while getting away from the daily grind.

The result was that, once we had taken a short nap in our cabin (this time located up by the life boats and consequently much quieter than the one we had on the outward leg), we wandered aimlessly from deck to deck, from restaurant to snack bar, from trinket shop to games area with no interest and no enthusiasm.

While I had seen shining brightness and the lure of the open sea on the way to Corsica, this time, fighting the kind of exhaustion that will no longer let you sleep no matter how much you try, all I found was dreary and second-rate fixtures and fittings; the sad, empty faces of people as worn-out as me; and a greyness that seeped in from the overcast sky and the cold depths all around us.

But what of Corsica itself? Before I met my wife, who comes from Nice, I was little aware of the island, apart from knowing it to be the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte, and where Lord Nelson had participated in the sieges of Bastia and Calvi.

British people, I have noticed, tend to visit the neighbouring islands of Sardinia and Sicily (and nowadays seem to lean more towards Italy than to France), yet if you talk to a French person you would get the impression that Corsica is pretty much the only island in the Mediterranean and by far the best, whatever that means. A jewel, they call it.

Once you get away from the tourist areas and the miles and miles of concrete that line most of the coastline, it can be stunning, especially around Cap Corse, which reminded me somehow of the rugged coast of Northern Ireland, and once you get up into the hills of the wild interior.

But it is also clear that, as a whole, Corsica is suffering from a chronic lack of investment that dates back decades, and it can be sad to enter into a church and see it decaying before your eyes, or find village after village in a very poor state of affairs.

You can find the same thing in areas of Italy, of course, in regions such as Piedmont or the northern part of Liguria as it snakes around towards France, and seeing a palpable sense of history and a connection to lives from the distant past crumble before your eyes is sad, to say the least.

It is tempting to suggest that maybe France or Italy do not have enough money to look after their heritage, outside of the principle tourist destinations, but that would be to forget that they are among the world’s largest economies.

To me, the material heritage of a country is not just for the people living in a particular hamlet, village or town but is part of its national identity, and needs curating as carefully any other cultural artefact. I hope these and other equally ancient countries begin to see it that way too.