Thursday 7th & Friday 8th May
Livorno, Italy to Corsica, France
Thursday
It rained really hard overnight. We, (actually, I) had to get up in the middle of the night to close the skylights as the rain was coming in.
In the morning the carpark potholes were all under water. Thankfully, by the time we were ready to leave the water had receded enough for us to find our way out.
We slowly headed for the Port and the ferry terminal. They have a small waiting area for motorhomes, its a bit scruffy, as you would expect being in a port, but there was enough space for us to wait for the ferry.
We walked up to a Café for a coffee and then noticed that other vehicles were checking in, so did so ourselves.
Our expectations of the checkin process isn’t very high, so we just waited patiently for the madness that is a foreign ferry port to unravel around us. And it did!
If you’ve ever taken a vehicle on a ferry from the UK, you’ll know that everything runs like a well-oiled machine. You are given a lane reflecting the size of vehicle you are driving and then you board in line and in turn.
This is not the case everywhere. On this occasion, the ferry loaders were walking through the bunched up vehicles looking for certain sizes to load first, so others were started, moved out of the way 5 metres and then the wait continues.
Eventually we boarded 50 minutes after the departure time.
We were manoeuvred into a space right in the corner and then had to make a quick exit as the next van was just about touching us.
We were squashed in so much so that when we returned to disembark quite a few drivers couldn’t even get into their vehicles – in any of their doors! We were just lucky that we were by the side of the boat. To get to and from the van we had to climb over caravan arms hooked up to cars!
Anyway, from then on everything was calm. The pet-friendly cabin was a good size and Meg immediately jumped on the bed. We popped upstairs to the top deck for a drink and then went back to the cabin for a shower and a kip.
It was only a five hour crossing, but if you didn’t have a cabin, you had to have a seat, nowhere calm for Meg, and as the cabins weren’t much more, we had booked one.
As it was the ferry approached Bastia just before 7pm, and as we were docking we heard the VE Day celebration band playing on the Port.
Getting off the ferry was a lot easier and quicker and we were then straight out and on our way through Bastia to a campsite next to a lagoon. It’s another big ACSI site called San Damiano
There’s a lovely beach, a pool, restaurant/bar and great kid’s play areas here. The bathroom facilities are modern and they even have a dog wash.
There’s also a fab Carrefour Express that sells everything for campers as well as beachwear and good food.
And all for €25 a night. Mad prices.
We had a walk along the beach while the sun went down and then went back for dinner.
Friday
We had a lazy day today.
I did some washing and shopping while Gareth cleaned out the van and put the garage area back into some kind of order ( you just end up chucking stuff about when the weather’s not so good and end up not being able to find anything 
).
Then we went to the beach and found out why no-one is laying on it. Within minutes we were covered in flies. This won’t do, even Meg doesn’t like that, so we went to the bar!
No flies or mosquitoes there, thank goodness. We had a ham and cheese pannini and a couple of radlers each.
Back at the van, Gareth & Meg went for a kip and I read my book.
After showers, we had chilli for dinner and are now sat covered up as protection from the mozzies. Hopefully they won’t be following us around the island 
.
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