Goosebumps in Quenza

When we woke up the next morning, despite the plentiful indulgence in local alcoholic beverages the night before, we felt surprisingly good. We opened the shutters of our room and enjoyed the magnificent view and fresh mountain air.

Downstairs in the bar, breakfast was already set up for us and the other guests. As a first measure, I asked if we could also have breakfast outside. That was alright of course, and so we enjoyed our petit-déjeuner in radiant sunshine on the terrace, surrounded by butterflies and with the farm dog at our feet. Heart, what more could you want!

I must say, all the hosts in Corsica made a great effort to offer a decent breakfast. Today too, there was delicious coffee (which we usually ordered "noir", to the great incomprehension of the Corsicans, i.e. without the obligatory milk), as well as croissants, rolls, honey, jam, yogurt, and orange juice. But no sign of the fantastic salami and homemade ham with which we had been spoiled here last night. You simply won't find a hearty breakfast here. At best, there might be a boiled egg. "C'est la vie!" Or as they say in Franconian: "Basst scho!"

The evening before, we had received a tip to visit the Restonica Gorge. That was also our first destination today. From the main road, the side road follows the "Gorges de la Restonica" and covers a difference in height of 1,000 m over 15 km.

When we arrived at the top at 1,370 m, we were not only greeted by a beautiful mountain landscape and an impressive waterfall, but surprisingly also by a group of perfectly organized parking attendants. The young people (I suspect they were students earning some money here in the summer) directed the drivers to the rare parking spaces in this narrow valley. If you're not early enough, you might have to park 1-2 km before the end of the side road and walk the rest. As motorcyclists, we were lucky once again and were allowed to ride all the way to the top.

Since longer hikes are not suitable with our motorcycle gear, we instead went down to the mountain stream and made ourselves comfortable there. With our noses in the sun and our feet in the water - it was very enjoyable.

At some point, we had enough of the sun, water, and idyll, and drove back down the Restonica Valley. After all, exploring the interior of the island was our goal for today! Therefore, our route led us straight to the south: first over the Col de Sorba to Ghisoni and then further on the D69 to Zicavo and Aullène. Here, away from the busy routes near the coast, we had the roads almost to ourselves this afternoon. The wild mountain landscape with its magnificent nature and perfect motorcycle roads - simply fantastic!

In the late afternoon, we finally arrived in Quenza, a pretty mountain village in southern Corsica. Our hotel search for today had identified the Hotel Sole E Monti as the favorite there. We got a nice room and Waltraud, our motorcycle, got a lockable parking space. "Traditional singers" were even announced for tonight. Well, let's see what that means...

When we arrived at the restaurant around half past seven, there was no sign of the promised singers. Did we already miss them? Are they still coming? We had been sitting at the table for a while when one of the four young men at the neighboring table took out his guitar and began to sing. Nice background music, was our first spontaneous impression. Far from it! After a few bars, his three partners joined in and started singing a perfect polyphonic song full of fervor, like I had never experienced before. Goosebumps ran up and down my spine involuntarily.

This type of music is called Paghjella and probably developed from Gregorian chant. The songs are sung in Corsican and deal with past times, love, nature, or the Virgin Mary. Especially during the occupation, they had the task of preserving and nurturing Corsican identity. Even today, the songs are performed with a special seriousness and dedication that creates an exceptional, almost sublime atmosphere. Here is a YouTube video of another Paghjella ensemble that interprets this music in a very similar way as on that evening: https://youtu.be/mha3z9Y8gRI (my favorite: the piece starting at minute 28:14).

Later in the evening, we took a little walk in Quenza. On the way back, we wanted to get a bottle of water in a bar. As usual, there was a refrigerator with different types of drinks for street sales. In my rudimentary French, I asked the landlord, a fully tattooed giant, for a "boteille eau minerale plate", i.e. a bottle of still mineral water. He reacted strangely rejecting to that and said something to me that I couldn't translate. I thought that maybe he just didn't understand me and repeated my request. But the tattooed man vigorously shook his head, turned around, went back into the bar, and had someone behind the counter hand him a bottle of water. But the bottle was empty! Now I was completely confused. The landlord handed me the empty plastic bottle and invited us to go outside with him. There, he pointed along the street and started talking to me in French again. This time, I understood at least one word: "source"! A quick exchange of looks with Steffi and then it was clear to us: he wanted us to get our water from the "source" instead of buying it from him for a lot of money! That was nice! Standing in front of his bar, the landlord watched us to see if we could find the village spring and really fill our bottle. Naturally, the water had excellent quality and tasted wonderful. Waving goodbye, we bid farewell to each other. What a sympathetic finish for this wonderful day!