Our host in Lozzi, Miryam, had lived in Australia for seven years, so was a very fluent speaker of English, which meant that we came to understand very quickly that for the next three days and nights we would be without wifi or anything much to do as Lozzi has no shops of any description. Ok, fine. We can manage that, Calacuccia is just 2 kilometres down the hill so…oh, yes, that’s right, down the hill which also comes prepackaged with an up the hill return policy. I’m pretty certain that part of the deal is unappealing.

Nevertheless, we decided to make the most of our newfound home and go for a wander and see what it had going on. It was actually quite a cute little village. Windy cobblestone streets, old codgers smoking pipes and playing petanque in the churchyard, sweet stray pooches looking for someone to love. All rather nice, but probably not enough to keep us satisfied for three days. The television was all French, and dubbed to French meaning that even our attempts to decipher what was going on in “Was God an Alien” were challenged. Looks like we may have to find something non-digital to do. Good lord!

Miryam suggested we hitch to Corte for a visit, which at first seemed like a baffling concept for us in our post-post-backpacker state of mind and body. But hitchhike we did, and it was quite fine. Pierre and Catherine from Bretane picked us up just outside Calacuccia some ten minutes after sticking our thumbs out for the first time in over 20 years. Despite some slightly maniacal driving (and reasonable tut-tutting from Catherine along the way), we had an easy cruise into Corte, where we parted ways with the understanding that should we require a lift back to Lozzi (where Pierre and Catherine were camping) we’d shoot them a text and ally-oop! This isn’t how backpacking works is it?

We had a nice scoot about Corte – quite a scruffy, daggy city from a touristic perspective, but quite lovely in its own special way. The museum was suitably daggy, too, but there were some interesting displays and it kept us occupied for a couple of hours and provided some respite from the ever-present sunshine and heat. After a bit of lunch and a wander down to the river to cool off the toes, we texted our drivers and tootled our way back to Calacuccia to have dinner and pick up our bikes. Josephine had a wild-boar stew with polenta, and I had pizza. There was Pietra. All very delicious. Oh, and the ride back up the hill…

Our next day was spent in the house – general noodling ensued, very little achieved. Very relaxing, and not at all unpleasant. After all, we needed to prepare ourselves for the next day, which was going to be the longest ride of our trip…