Sarah hiking.
At the end of our second day hiking, we stayed at a 70's ski lodge called the Castel di Vergio. It was where everyone hiking the GR20 (the major north south trail) stayed. They thought it was odd that we were hiking east-west instead.
We saw and heard cattle foraging the herbal undergrowth as we hiked up mountains.
We hiked a portion of the GR20. It was different from the rest of our trip because there were a lot of other hikers around. The people who took our pictures remembered us a week or so later in Ajaccio telling us about their trip and saying they remembered us because we were "the Americans with the hats." We had no clue who they were.
One of the highlights on the directions for the third day was a swimming hole. We were looking forward to it-but when we got close there was a big sign saying no swimming allowed. However, as we got closer to the hole, we noticed the pool was quite busy. It was very refreshing to swim.
After the swimming hole, the directions made it sound like the town was right around the corner, but it was more like an hour and a half walk through a beautiful farm land with chestnut trees.
Little Etruscan churches dotted the landscape.
We were very happy as we approached Evisa, a pretty little mountain village.
More pictures of the Spelunca gorge.
When we reached this village, we thought that we were half way done and we stopped for a leisurely ice cream.
After hiking up this mountain, we realized that we hiked up the wrong mountain (bad directions) and had to turn around. Oops.
Porto and the Mediterranean! Only a little bit left! We decided we'd take a harder hike and go up the bluff overlooking the town.
The Genoise tower in the Porto harbor. Unfortunately, it was pretty much straight down from where we were. Oops. We had to scramble down the very steep trail.
When we finally got to our hotel, we were very happy to be there- until dinner, when the waitress insisted that something that was meaty and flat was "poisson" when it was clearly NOT "poisson." When we pointed out that everyone else had poisson-like poisson (white and flaky)-she acted as if we were morons. But, for the record, that was NOT poisson in Porto.
The Genoise tower at Porto.
The clear turquoise waters of the Mediterranean.