How would you pronounce Ajaccio?

Ajaccio! Birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte! Where we managed to see absolutely nothing related to Napoleon whatsoever…actually, we DID see the outside of the house where Napoleon was born, but the horde of tourists and schoolgroups was a major deterrent in trying to brave the museum inside the house. However, I get ahead of myself.

Ajaccio is a tender port, and so after breakfast, we got onto one of the four catamarans shuttling passengers to the jetty. At the jetty, we did our usual trick of bypassing the ubiquitous ship photographers and headed into the town. The route I chose by chance passed the main market, which apparently was present every day until 1 pm. There we found a little booth selling candy and lovely wooden children’s toys, and we stopped to look – eventually buying a few things. That was where I got my first “good for you, you speak French, even lamely” bonus – the lady threw in 4 toffee lollipops, and she was very friendly. I get the impression that they’re used to tourists who can’t speak any French at all.

After the market, we made our way to Maison Napoleon, which was teeming with the aforementioned hordes. Torsten was getting restless, so after we snapped a picture of the house, we went back to the boulevard we’d walked up so that he could run about a little. Then we wandered in the direction of the Fesch Museum, which is supposed to have the largest collection of Italian art in France other than the Louvre. To our disappointment, the museum was closed until the end of 2009. Thus, we gave up on trying to see anything remotely historical, and just wandered around.

Ajaccio has some quaint winding streets, some of them pedestrian areas, filled with shops with homes above them. It was funny walking down one of the restaurant streets and seeing the lines of laundry flapping up above. We didn’t look up very much, however, because as this is a French city, dog poop abounded on the sidewalks and roads. There were a number of tourist-oriented shops, but also some nice shops selling fashionable clothing (I really like the fashions here, but I regretfully decided not to spend the minimum 25 Euros on flimsy articles) and jewellery. We did stop into a little gift shop selling cute glass animals, which is where I got my second lame-French-speaker bonus – she threw in a pen. It was awfully funny, because she wanted to practice her English, and I wanted to practice my French, so we both limped along in foreign languages. I’m amazed at how few tourists speak even a few words of French. Being a busybody, I would often hear people struggling (or, more often, repeating English words loudly to an uncomprehending Corsican) and throw in a translation in passing – and my French is NOT very good!

We then stopped for lunch at a harbourside bistro that had a nice patio by the wharf, where we watched some fishermen preparing their boats and nets. The table next to us had a plate heaped with tiny fried fishes, so I asked what they were (Friture des éperlans – fried smelts) and promptly ordered them. Yum! Torsten agrees – he kept snitching them from my plate. Ingo had a ham, cheese and mushroom galette.

After lunch, we meandered over to the citadel, which was built in 1492 (and had bits added onto it in the 3 centuries after that), and is still in use as a military base. Since we couldn’t get in, we took stairs down to the beach below it, where we introduced Torsten to sand and the beach. He didn’t actually wet his toes in the water, just went close and then back up the beach; however, after he got used to it, he really enjoyed digging his feet and toes in the sand (which was very fine and soft).

We stopped for a quick (and as it turned out, expensive) ice cream, primarily so that we could use the restrooms, and then decided to head back along the pedestrian shopping street, as I’d decided to buy another little glass animal. It’s a good thing that we did, since the shopkeeper had forgotten to put in one of my previous purchases! This time, I think the little flashlight that she threw in was an “oops” bonus.

On our way back to the tender, Torsten fell asleep in the backpack. He’s still sleeping now – only waking up briefly to drink a bit of water and eat some banana bread. Ingo and I are sitting on our balcony, sipping club soda, and watching the sea sparkle in the light. This is the life!