The Y-Tree and the Saving Oasis

Today's route planning has a special feature: For the first time on the journey, we are not just drifting (according to the 'follow your nose' principle), but heading north deliberately, as we have decided to take the ferry from Bastia in northeastern Corsica to Genoa tomorrow evening.

We left our wonderful hotel and the nice little town of Quenza with a heavy heart, but stopped just two towns further to have a cozy breakfast at a café on the village square. From our table, we watched the hustle and bustle and were glad that we had decided to have breakfast outside the - in comparison then somehow "closed" - hotel walls.

After the consistently positive experiences with the lonelier mountain roads in the interior of the island yesterday, today the goal was to go one step further on even smaller roads. The super curvy Route de Bavella, which took us down to Solenzara on the east coast via the pass of the same name, was initially two-laned and despite some Sunday excursion traffic, it was quickly passable. I had hoped in vain to pass a gas station no later than Solenzara, but on the next 130 km that our motorcycle 'Waltraud' predicted as remaining range, there should surely be a gas station at some point. Definitely! ;)

Along the east coast, we drove a few kilometers along the water. This coastal strip up to Bastia is one of the very few flat areas on Corsica - not particularly beautiful. So straight back into the mountains! Up there are idyllic mountain villages with fantastic names like Isolaccio-di-Fiumorbo, Pietrapola, and Poggio-di-Nazza. The roads that connect the lonely places here are only one-laned and the surface is a real patchwork. They wind through the mountains like roller coasters, often with tight hairpin bends and can definitely be described as challenging to drive. A dream! Besides us, there were only a handful of locals here. We felt like we almost owned the island alone today! And even the lowlands down by the coast had its charm when viewed from up here.

Encouraged by our experiences yesterday, we replenished our water supplies at a nicely enclosed spring on the way.

However, it was definitely not possible to refuel our gasoline supplies up there. No village gas station anywhere in the vicinity! In the meantime, the displayed remaining range had shrunk to 60 kilometers. On the first day of our trip, we had already found out that our motorcycle is way too optimistic when it comes to the distance that can still be covered, and we almost ran out of fuel. So, we probably only had about 30 kilometers left until it would happen again. But the next larger town is Ghisoni and it is already coming up in ten kilometers. There we can definitely refuel!

Unfortunately, despite our immense confidence in our luck, we did not really succeed in enjoying the beautiful Inzecca Canyon to the fullest. The boldly winding road snakes along the top of the rock, often only separated from the abyss and the wild river Fium Orbu by a low wall. At the well-known Y-Tree, we made a short stop. This marks the descent to bathing spots in the river.

There you can not only bathe in several water basins called "gumpen," but also jump into the water from various heights (6-22 meters) courageously. There is even a natural water slide here. Unfortunately, we continued without jumping into the cool water...

"In Ghisoni, we finally found the hoped-for gas station and filled up the tank of our AfricaTwin to the brim again." I would love to write that at this point, but unfortunately it is not the (sad) truth. Now it was slowly getting serious. Google Maps named Total in Vivario as the nearest gas station and it was a whopping 20 kilometers away! This was almost exactly the expected range with our now almost empty tank. And on this route, we still had to tackle the Col de Sorba, which we already knew from the day before and has a height of 1,311 meters (one of the highest passes in Corsica). While I cautiously rode Waltraud over the pass, thoughts involuntarily came to my mind, such as the question of whether it might be possible that this gas station might not exist anymore and - if so - whether it might be closed today on a Sunday?!? Reaching the pass summit necessitated a deep breath. On the way down, we simply let it roll. At the bottom, right at the turn from the pass onto the busy T20, the engine started to stutter when accelerating. Oh oh, more than three kilometers to go! In the slipstream of a truck, we practically rolled towards the marking of a gas station according to Google Maps with idle speed. Uphill one more small rise, downhill on the other side, and finally, the long-awaited Total gas station appeared at the roadside! It existed, was open, had enough fuel, and in that moment, it was by far the greatest gas station in the whole world for us! This must have been how the caravans felt when they finally arrived at the saving oasis after days in the endless desert. Man, were we relieved! ;-)

Now that this issue had come to a happy end, I went online to find our accommodation for tonight. The Auberge E Cime in Asco was praised highly in the reviews and was also reasonably priced. The town is located in the Asco Valley, which we already knew from our last trip to Corsica. We drove straight there without detours and were really thrilled. What a panorama! The majestic mountains on the left and right of the valley seemed within reach, and we thoroughly enjoyed the mild summer evening on the hotel terrace with excellent food.