Erbalunga and Cap Corse

We arrived in Corsica (an island that is part of France) by ferry from Nice to Bastia. We stayed just outside Bastia in the small coastal town of Erbalunga. This was one of my favorites of the places we stayed in Corsica. The hotel had nice gardens, the ocean was close by, and there was a patisserie (bakery) across the street.

The first morning I looked out the window and saw there was a nice sunrise, but by the time we got going it was ending. The next two mornings I got out earlier to catch it. Of course, that meant I took a ton of sunrise photos!









The morning light was also nice on the old buildings.



As usual, I loved the details of light and color and pattern.







The stone tiled roofs (common) must be heavy, but the shingles wouldn't wear out!



We spent a scenic day driving around Cap Corse, the peninsula on the north west end of Corsica.

The Genoans (who ruled Corsica from 1284 to 1755) built a lot of round towers all over Corsica to defend against North African (Barbary) pirates. The new wind turbines made an interesting contrast with the old towers.





We even managed to find a few wineries to visit :-) One of the common grapes is Neilluccio, which is either indigenous to Corsica or else identical to Sangiovese from Italy. (you'd think DNA would tell?) Regardless, they make some nice wines with it. Most of the wine is red or rose, not much white. The rose were a beautiful orange / peach color.



There were lots of small hillside villages, each with at least one church, and often with cemeteries with elaborate mausoleums.





We even spotted paragliders in several places, including these ones near Saint Florent. They launched from the ridge behind them on the right and landed on the beach.



Saint Florent had an impressive citadel.



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Reflections from Nice

Being around water, I've been taking lots of reflection photos.

Usually I like to make the images high contrast and bright colors, but occasionally I'll find one that seems more suited to a softer look.



Some of these were taken on the ferry from Nice to Corsica. Usually open ocean would be too rough for reflections, but it was a calm evening.



Similarly, the open ocean would usually just be shades of blue,  but the pink clouds at sunset added some color.



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Nice, France

After our paragliding tour we took the train from Salzburg back to Vienna, left our paragliders in storage, picked up our backpacking gear and headed for Corsica with a brief stop in Nice, France. Unfortunately, it rained a lot, but it was still interesting to see a different part of France. (I'd only been to Paris and the French alps before.) The buildings have lots of balconies with metal railings that reminded me a little of New Orleans. And pastel colors that we don't tend to see in our cities.



As usual, I enjoyed the smaller passageways in the old town, and details that catch my eye.





I'd recently read (if that's the right word) a book of photographs of reflections (Chasing Reflections by Eli Reinholdtsen). They were  reflections in windows and puddles, very different reflections than my usual light on water ones. So after all the rain, with water everywhere, I tried a few in that style.





The pigeons were also taking advantage of the puddles to have a bath.



The other common city birds were the collared doves. Interestingly, these only spread from Asia to Europe in the last 70 years. I wonder what triggered their dispersion?



Despite it being autumn, there were still quite a few flowers around (at least, compared to Saskatoon!)





Of course, I found some abstract subjects as well.





Thankfully, the sun came out in the afternoon. Lots of people came out on the waterfront and beach.





From Nice we took the ferry to the island of Corsica, passing the city state of Monaco (where Monte Carlo is), the second smallest country in the world. (the smallest is the Vatican)





The sun set just as we were getting to Corsica and a full moon rose.



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Hummingbird hawk-moth

I was wandering in the gardens at our hotel A Cheda near Bonifacio, Corsica taking photos when I was excited to notice a hummingbird hawk-moth feeding on the flowers. This was the first one I've seen. (This is a European/Asian species but there are similar ones in North America.)

It is amazingly similar to a hummingbird (convergent evolution), hovering over flowers to feed and zipping between them. I didn't notice but apparently they even make a "humming" noise.

I had my camera ready, but even then it was hard to catch since it didn't sit still for very long. I managed a few decent shots:







I would say it was around 5 cm long (2 in).

Salzburg, Austria

We took the train from Vienna to Salzburg (quick and easy) to meet up with our paragliding group. We only had a day there, but enjoyed wandering around the old town and visiting the huge castle complex on the hill (one of the largest medieval castles in Europe). Our hotel was on the other side of the ridge from old town, but there was a tunnel that made it easy to walk through. Salzburg was the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and was the setting for The Sound of Music. It's known for it baroque architecture and is a world heritage site.



Lots of attractive paths and buildings.



One of the first things we noticed was the pedestrian bridge crossing the river, covered in "love locks". Apparently this is spreading, there was even a fence of them in Makarska, Croatia.



The leaves were just starting to change color here (long past at home!)



We happened to wander into the Mirabell palace gardens which were lovely. The flowers were at the end of their season but still colorful.







There were lots of statues and sculptures around town, some old, some new.







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Radovljica, Slovenia

On our way back to Austria at the end of our paragliding trip, we spent the night in Radovljica, a small town of no particular significance. We had the option of staying in the larger city of Ljubljana, but I'm glad we stopped where we did since I enjoy small towns more than big cities. It still amazes me how these towns have existed for a thousand years or more. They've grown, of course, but they still resemble the ancient towns in outline.



In the morning before we left Shelley and I wandered around town and down to the river.





Much of what we saw of Slovenia was forested hills.



Interesting mix of old and new artwork on the walls.





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Split, Croatia

During our travels in Slovenia and Croatia in search of decent paragliding conditions, we stopped for a few hours in Split, Croatia to check out the Diocletian's Palace. "Palace" is a bit misleading since it's more like a small walled town that included a palace. Game of Thrones fans will be interested to hear that this was the location for filming the fourth season. Dubrovnik (which some of our group also visited) even had Game of Thrones tours to show you the various locations used for filming.

The view from the top was worth paying to climb the highest tower.





Bougainvillea is one of my favorites and this was a huge one. (I wonder if the Romans had Bougainvillea?)



Not sure who this guy was.



When I first saw this sphinx I wondered what it was doing here. Apparently the palace was decorated with numerous 3500 year old granite sphinxes that were taken from the site of the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose III. Only a few remain.



I love all the small stone passageways in these old towns.



But there were modern shops and restaurants and even homes within the palace complex, which was a little incongruous. But who wouldn't want to buy their lingerie in an ancient palace?



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