The first tour in 2013 was in mid-June, when the team went to a scooter ride through Corsica. The idea came from the fact, that our eponymous sponsor uses a Piaggio Liberty scooter for their delivery services. This could even be a training camp, as the narrow, cranky roads of Corsica made Imi and Sztoji more confident to ride through Budapest when delivering the live coaled chimney cakes.
We have planned a 7 day tour, which included the two days we’ve spent travelling there and back, one day for climbing the Monte Cinto and four days for riding about 750 kilometres through the island. The rented (from Tra Mare e Monti) 125 c.c. Kymco Like scooters proved to be a great choice; we’ve only lost two exhaust decorations on the way. Before the start we agreed on a challenge, the person using the least fuel to win a bottle of wine. The winner was Imi, who only burnt 21, 8 l petrol, an average of 2, 84 l consumption.
On the first day we travelled from Calvi to Lozzi via L’ile Rousse, where we met a friendly face from Szekelyudvarhely, before continuing our journey into the mountains. Every so often we decided to leave the main routes, as the hills, mountains and the small roads around them offered more excitement. First we tested the bikes on the steep hills around Novella, and then added a little bypass to Popolasca. Rejoining the main road we visited the old capital, Corte, and started the most spectacular part of the journey through the Golo-basin, the Scala di Santa Regina canyon that led us to Lozzi, where we begun our tour to Monte Cinto.

Novella
On Wednesday we gave the bikes a rest and continued on foot, to climb the highest point of Corsica, the Monte Cinto. A German man joined Vitez Kurtos’ team of three to find the way to the top through the rocks. Unfortunately, due to the extremely cold and wet spring, the mountains were still covered in a lot of snow, which allowed us to get to 2380 metres, but no further. As we have no experience or previous training, as well as the lack of equipments, we had to turn around at this point. Post GPS tracks showed that in “bee line”, we were about 465 metres away from the top. (2706 metre)
After the mountain climbing adventure, we had three more days of scooter ride with the most beautiful views, completing 160 – 170 kilometres daily. On Wednesday night we have slept on the beach again, and started on Thursday from Porto, passing Les Calanches – the amazing rocky stage, swam in the Sagon bay, spent a few hours in the biggest city of the island, Ajaccio, the birth city of Napoleon, then stayed the night in Sartene, the place considered the most Corsican by all guidebooks.
On Firday we looked around Sartene, and then went to Bonifacio. The city is not only the one town located the furthest down south, but also the most beautiful; the stunning medieval castle gives an incredible view to the sea and the neighbouring Sardinia. After walking the pathway by the side of the rock, where the king of Aragonia’s steps lead the road, we hopped on our scooters again and via Porto Vecchio we made our way towards the mountains. We took a few pictures at the lake by L’Ospedale, which rests on 945 metre, then followed the spectacular route through the Bavella pass to the beach, and spent a night in the camping in Solenzara.

A doorway in Ajaccio
On Saturday, our journey to Calvi took us through Corte once more, where we bought a flower bouquet which we placed on the memorial of Toivonen-Cresto, found on the route D18. The Finnish- American rally pair was the victim of a car crash on May 2nd, 1986; till this day they are the most well-known casualties of the Rally World Championships. The accident meant the end of the notorious B-group, as the racing cars were able to perform at 600 horsepower, but not even reaching a ton; the cars were therefore banned at the end of that very year.

Path in the rock
We’ve spent the last night in the Bodri camping near L’ile Rousse, where we have even baked chimney cakes by using our home baking kit, which will be available to buy in September. The easy-to-assemble portable kit proved very useful throughout the tour, as we’ve used the grills every night to prepare our dinner. Our cookbook published in May, “Otthoni ízek”, gave us lovely options for every meal: rakott krumpli (“casserole potatoes”), toltottarde leves (toltottarde soup) and the csirkepaprikas (“paprika chicken”) all tasted delicious, even though the food has been prepared on charcoal in the camping.
On the way to the tour we wondered through the city of Firenze, and on the way back from our journey we went to Pisa, only 24 kilometres away from Livorno, where we viewed the Pisa Tower, the dome, the baptistery and ate a pizza. We’ve arrived to Budapest 7 am on Monday morning.
As you now know, we have recorded each day of our exciting tour. By clicking the links below, you can see our coverage (in Hungarian - use browsers translate funtion for english):
0. Corsica Scooter tour
1. Firenze, ferry, Corsica
2. People from home everywhere
3. 2380
4. Swimming in the sea
5. Pure beauty in South Corsica
6. Back to Calvi and a little rally history
7. Bastia and Pisa
+1. Video: Les Calanches
+2. Video: The steps of Aragonia’s King
Tags: bastia bonifacio camping climbing corsica hiking monte cinto scooter