June 19, 2023
Livorno (IT) to Bastia (FR)
After 8 nights camping I thought I'd sleep really well in a bed. I was wrong. It was hot and I woke every hour to check my phone and make sure we weren't going to sleep in and miss our ferry. I gave up at 5:30 and got up for coffee.
We were out of the house in record time. We shuttled everything downstairs and James loaded the bikes and dismantled Tobias' bed while he had his feed and got dressed. We were out of the door and on the way to the ferry by 7am. We had some trouble working out where exactly we were meant to go but had plenty of time. Lucky, because a very gruff man who scanned our tickets said we had something wrong and sent me off to the counter. He didn't speak any English but seemed to have a big problem with the trailer. He was definitely not convinced that it was a stroller. I took Tobias with me and he charmed the staff at the ticket counter (he's learnt to say 'ciao' and 'grazie', it's quite useful having a cute sidekick sometimes). We ended up having to pay an extra €19 for our trailer. It's not actually possible when booking tickets to book a bike and a trailer, but turns out it's necessary.
We lined up with all the motorbikes which Tobias was stoked about. He walked up and down checking out all the bikes and proclaiming them "noisy" "big" or "little". It was a bit treacherous riding up the ramp but we made it and parked with the handful of cycle tourists there. Because we were among the first to board we easily found a seat on the top deck under the shade to spend the journey.
Of all the forms of public transport, boats have to be one of the better ones with bikes and babies. Bikes can go on like cars, and there is so much room for a kid to move around. This one even had a whole playroom for kids so we took turns napping upstairs or watching Tobias play. James chatted to one of the cyclists for a bit - a young Austrian guy on his way to Corsica to ride for a bit. He's ridden the road from Bologna to Florence and showed us some photos from the road. It was mostly fine, but the bits that weren't fine would not have been possible for our bikes.
The crossing took a bit more than 4hr and Tobias was pretty tired by the time we disembarked in Bastia. We found the first spot of shade to get ourselves rearranged and him in the trailer then headed out for what was supposed to be a short, easy, ride on a bike path to our campsite for the next 3 nights. It was a bit chaotic finding the right route out since our ferry and another had just arrived, plus all the roads are stacked on top of each other with tunnels and bridges. Once we got on the path it seemed to be undergoing a lot of construction. We dodged a digger and just kept waiting for someone to tell us we had to stop. Didn't happen though and once we got past that the riding was great. The path eventually ran out and the route that Komoot sent us down was closed. A friendly cyclist coming the other way did his best to explain this to us and give us some alternatives (carry our bikes over railway lines in a factory or go on the highway). The highway sounded marginally better but it was pretty scary and definitely not for bikes. It was 2 lanes and had a barrier so we had to head back towards Bastia as fast as we could until we found a roundabout where we could get over to the mountain side of the highway. It was a big climb but then we could piece together an ugly route on roads made for cars to get past the broken bit. Once we crossed the estuary it was back to a separated cycle path for the last 3km.
Our camping is a huge place, though the sites are all quite big and shady and different. We aren't packed in like sardines which is nice, and we could wander around and choose a spot with the most shade. After getting the tent up we went to the pool. Tobias is getting so confident in the water, considering we hadn't taken him swimming until we were in NZ in March and we've never done anything consistent. He was pretty exhausted tonight and fell asleep before we could get his pyjamas on. We're here 3 nights, hopefully we will do some rides in the hills we can see behind our tent site without all our luggage and see if our legs are any stronger than they were 2 months ago.
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Today's ride: 16 km (10 miles)
Total: 1,651 km (1,025 miles)
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