This is the most exciting photo I took in Oristano.  It was a mistake to go there, or at least half a mistake.  I wanted to take a trip out of Olbia to see a bit more of the island.  At first I planned to take the train down to Cagliari the capital, where incidentally I once applied for a TEFL job back in the day, but that seemed too long a trip so I decided on Oristano halfway down the west coast.  Sadly I didn’t investigate a bit further.

The trip down was pleasant with a variety of scenery, vineyards, olive trees even evidence of cereal crops.  Maybe that’s for their Sardinian whisky.  I saw bottles on sale but didn’t buy nor try.

The town though was disappointing.  On the coast it may have been but actually a wee bit inland and the beaches according to Google were an hour away by bus.  Google also told me that a bus was expected any minute in the piazza that I was in.  I looked around for a bus stop, couldn’t see one, so asked a couple of locals who were idling in the shade.

They declared that the stop was down a street off the piazza and argued about which street.  Eventually they reached a consensus and I set off down the street eyes peeled.  As I peered up an even sider side street the whoosh of a bus came from behind.  I’d missed it.

Well my spirits flagged.  I wandered about a bit.  There didn’t seem to be any town centre to this place and no signs pointing anywhere.  There was incessant vehicle traffic but no pedestrians.  I found a little café and had an uninspiring tuna sandwich on plastic bread and a coffee.

I decided to cut my losses and get the next train back and headed for the station.  It was now breakfast time in Houston so I gave Ewan a ring to say Happy Birthday.  As a consequence of having returned to employment  he was at that moment driving to his office poor chap.

Next day was moving day.  After a fair amount of palaver and hanging about I got on a bus heading for Santa Teresa Gallura.  It was a lovely trip, beautiful coastal scenery, blue skies and seas strewn with little islands.  The Aga Khan had taste as well as money and business acumen when he fixed on this part of north eastern Sardinia.  Pictures snatched through dirty bus windows wouldn't have given you the proper impression.  So no pics sadly. 

From where the bus stopped in a rudimentary bus station, ie a bit of a carpark I walked down a very steep hill towards the ferry port thanking my lucky stars that I wasn’t walking up.  Why doesn’t the bus go down there?

Now I was a few hours before my appointed ferry but there was one from a different company on the point of leaving so I abandoned my already paid for crossing and stumped up 30 euros rather than hang around, there being nothing of interest to hang around for.

It's a short trip across to Bonifacio and the entry into the port is spectacular.  Steep rugged cliffs and a narrow seaway,

then what doesn’t seem more than a creek packed with boats.

When you disembark a sign points up a near vertical hill saying Haute Ville. There’s no bus-stop (not room), a taxi space (empty) and cardiac arrest waiting for me if I tried to drag my bag up the hill.

So I struck out through the forest of bars and restaurants that lined the creek which was obviously the marina., packed as it was with super-yachts, motor cruisers and the occasional sailboat.  I looked one of them up later; yours to rent for $196,000 a week plus expenses.

At the end of the line of commerce and riches (what a contrast to the one small bar and a diving school on the Santa Teresa waterfront) there was a bus-stop, a taxi stand and a little tourist train but no buses taxis or trains. 

Eventually a chap put me on the road to my hotel, fortunately almost entirely flat and only a short walk away.

The receptionist was very helpful, in the first instance by giving me a nice cool glass of water to ease my obviously knackered state.  Then he spent some time checking out buses to Ajaccio for the next day.  This had proved ambiguous back in Edinburgh.   He began with something of a tale of woe.  There aren’t usually buses on a Sunday and one of the bus companies has been in difficulty and various other unpromising bits of information.  But in the end he seemed satisfied that there would be a bus the following morning at 10.00, and so it proved.

It was a bit of a struggle up to the second floor with my bags, no lift.  But like rock climbing I inched my way up one hold at a time.

After some rest I had an enjoyable evening stroll through the marina and a nice bit of fish.

It took about four hours in the bus to get to Ajaccio.  We passed through beautiful mountain scenery.  The French don’t call Corsica l'Île de Beauté without good reason.  It’s impressive.

My hotel was minutes away from the bus station and indeed from the train station and from the port and the market and everything else.  The town centre is crowded along the gulf.  In the evening I strolled and watched and ate.

The following day I did an open top bus tour around the town centre and along a stretch of coast where as well as residential blocks there are also hotels and beaches and so on, including a large deserted plot in which stands Tino Rossi’s equally deserted villa.  You’d think that since after Napoleon he’s probably Ajaccio’s most famous denizen they’d have made it into a museum of popular song or something.   In the evening I escaped the heat in a little park where I enjoyed the sort of lounging chairs that they have in the Luxembourg gardens in Paris.

Another thing I’ve been able to do here is catch up on the Olympics on TV.  Naturally the focus is on French competitors but I saw the British win the men’s relay in the pool and with my coffee this morning watched Duncan Scott beat the French star Leon Marchand in a swimming heat.  Not sure what it was for but maybe I’ll catch the final on the boat to Marseille tonight.

Yesterday I had a much more satisfactory outing by train than my trip in Sardinia.  I went to Corsi which is in the middle of the island.  It was a major place, indeed at one time the capital given its position at the intersection of north to south and east to west routes way back when.

You had to be tough in those days or just stay where you were born because the island is very mountainous and heavily forested.  They’ve got a special forest fire brigade which I’m sure has its work cut out when misfortune strikes.

Corti itself was lovely.  It’s quite small but is a university town where 4000 students take courses so it probably gets quite lively.  The station is a couple of hundred metres below the old town and the citadel that was so important in the past.  Fortunately one of those little tourist trains is available to take you up and even bring you down again.  I took it up but walked down.  While I was up I had lunch in a restaurant with a misting system so I was periodically gently sprayed with water.  And welcome it was.  Now I’m whiling away time in the shade waiting for my boat to the continent.

Speaking of boats I made some unsuccessful attempts to go on a wee cruise.  They were either full up or too early in the morning or focused on snorkelling or just not the relaxed activity I was after.