Getting there

Getting to the northern end of the GR20 in Calenzana is fairly straight-forward. There are daily flights from Nice to Calvi (also from Paris, Marsielle, etc.) and it's a short €20 taxi ride from the airport. Since Markus's flight wasn't arriving until after 6PM we planned to stay in a hotel for a night (near Calvi), then start walking the next morning.

The morning of June 11th we hired a taxi to Calenzana, which was the first of my many poor attempts at communicating with someone in French. We had the taxi drop us off at a supermarket in Calenzana to buy supplies for a few days. This consisted mostly of food for lunch — cheese, bread, sausage, and fruit — since we expected to get dinner and breakfast at the refuges along the way. At home I had stocked up on Larabars and Clif bars, and Markus brought the obligatory gorp.

I had expected to get some Euros in the airport, but because of my short connections I hadn't been able to and the Calvi airport didn't have an ATM. Markus had to be the cash bank until we could find an ATM, and I used my credit card when possible. Good thing Markus brought cash. It's sort of ironic because in my wallet I had ¥7000, 40 Loonies, a few Pounds, and some old French francs, but not a single Euro.

By 10 AM we were at the trailhead. I would guess that the majority of hikers that day had left quite a bit earlier in order to miss the mid-day heat, but our bodies were still operating on US East Coast (for me) and US West Coast (for Markus) time.

Next