Aleria - Bastia

General
Pretty long section with, depending on the weather, strong headwinds. At the beginning of the Etang de Biguglia (before Bastia) it's best to take the road along the sea because there is much less traffic. Additionally the campsite of San Damiano is on this path. Next to the cross road, there is a big supermarket. At time of writing ('97) there was nothing afterwards till the campsite. From Bastia there is a train running through wild nature till Corte, the center of the Island.

Distance
Around 85km

Type
In general flat with a few hills

Additional Information
Aleria: The city, situated on a plateau nearby the river Tavignano, was once the best natural harbor at the coast and was settled since the Youth Stone Age. In the 6th century B.C. the branch Alalia was founded by the Greek. They had a special way to live (like its follower too) - an combination of trade and piracy. The result was: they had always battles. In the 3th century the city was conquered by the Romans. They made Aleria to the starting-point of their subjugation of the island (which went on nearly one hundred years and killed almost the half of the population) and later to the capital of the Roman province Corsica. With the decline of the Roman empire the city decayed. Nowadays Aleria is a village, towered above from a fort, which house a museum with antique finds.

Bastia: Bastia is the biggest and most important economic city of the island. It is the capital of Haute-Corse, a typical Corsican mixture of old and new, Italian and French. Immediate in the north there is the peninsula of Cap Corse. The industry zone reach 20 km to the south into the eastern lowlands, where also the airport Poretta is. Who arrives in Bastia by ferry is, in contrast to the flight passengers, immediately in the center of Corsica. There is the possibility to drive through the tunnel under the old harbor to the highway in the south (not for bicycles), but there also other possibilities to acclimatize.
Bastia has around 60'000 inhabitants.