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 Coasts
and
Shores
Corsican Cape [Ph. Desjobert]
Coasts and Shores Unfold on you Like a Beautiful Poem
A outline that a small corsican schoolboy could draw with his eyes closed.
First, as a winner, he draws, the thumb in the shist, the Corsican
Cape, with its Eastern slope which is a little hilly and with small green
spots which symbolizes the agricultural activities such as the fodder cultivations
or the small vineyards. There also are small well-formed rings to indicate Erbalunga
and the houses caressed by the sea, Sisco and its 17 hamlets, or Rogliano and
its fortified castles, while he cuts out the opposite slope in small indentations
which shelter many small harbors - or marina whose names are melodius - marina
of Tollare, Giottani, Albo, Farinole, faithful to fishermen and sailors who
have been for a long time the " inhabitants" of the cape. He does
not forget to note down the name of these villages which have known how to keep
their green-grey sea colored flat-stone roofs, where felicitously meet the traditional
houses and " houses of America" which attest of the "fortune"
of these children come back to " home" after having spent their life
in the West Indies or in Venezuela.
Then, the small schoolboy, decides to draw the surround of his isle
according to his geological knowledges that he has freshly acquired: first
the crystalline Corsica which is the most spread out, because it goes
from Saint Florent to Solenzara
and which also is the most difficult to draw because of its savage,
hilly, sculpted, hollow, wild and so strangely beautiful coasts; and because
of its eight Gulfs, its Capes and "Tips", its bay's ends, its
beaches lined-up by prickly pears, by heather or reeds. He knows that
his pencil which he tightly hold, sculpts realities as wonderful as the
caves of Scandola, the Gulf
of Porto, the rocky inlets of Piana,
the "sanguinaires"
isles or the Roccapina "tip" guarded by its Lion of Granite...
Reaching the extreme South of the isle, the child hesitates, he would
like to draw but cannot - except by drawing in a section - the sumptuous
and dazzlingly beautiful cliffs of Bonifacio
which remind us of the Provence, with its Caves and its rias which
remind us of certain Norman landscapes as the folds - which also are calcareous
of the Saint Florent hills.
But his work of lacemaker carries on as along he goes to draw the isles of Cavallo
and Lavezzi, the outlines of
the Gulf of Manza, the Santa Giulia
Bay of dream, the Gulf of Porto - Vecchio which seems jealous of its beauty...
How it is difficult to try to draw with accuracy the many small beaches and
inlets which have the perfume of holiday and which scintillate all along the
coast, basking between Palombaggia
and Pinarello.
Then the Coast of the "Nacres" appears and the surrounds of
the dynamic Solenzara resort,
which is the boundary between the crystalline coast and the coast of schist,
which takes its sunny name (sole = sun) from this river which is so proud
to have its origines under the look of the Peaks of Bavella, which is
the jewel of the Alta Rocca.
Finally, our small geographer can untie his wrist to draw between Solenzara
and Bastia, the outlines of the unique big plain of Corsica which stretches
out on about a hundred of kilometres of alluvial and sandy soils which resembles
Camargue with its lagoons and its ponds (of Urbino, Diana,
Biguglia) which were formerly the kingdom of the anopheles mosquito.
It is the fight against mosquito associated to the creation of a hydraulic
network which is capable of irrigating 23000 hectares of lands, which
have permitted to this land (for a long time abandoned to the unic swamp
land) to come up again under the form Of large vineyards or orchards of
citrus fruit and also to its villages (which were formerly hamlets) such
as Ghisonaccia - capital of the plain - to develop their economy through
agriculture and tourism. Just reward of things! It is actually on this
coast - which is said to be oriental - that is situated Aleria,
the capital of the Antic Corsica (about 565 B.C).
Looking whith pride its drawing, the child wants to put on it colors, but he
renounces because its palette seems to him too inadequate to render the richness,
of the multiplicity, of the character but also of the lightness and transparence
of its isle's out lands, of its lands and waters...
Corsican Nature there is also :
A Few books to Go Further.... 
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