Stunning Fireworks


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Europe » France » Corsica » Calvi
August 15th 2016
Published: June 8th 2017
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It's very hot in the apartment, so I spend most of the night trying to sleep outside on a couch on the terrace. If I did this back home I would have been eaten alive by a swarm of marauding mosquitoes, but apparently not so here. The taxi turns up; we're very relieved.

I thought that we'd have the airport to ourselves at 5.30am, but it's crawling with people. Madrid airport must have a lot of runways. If the departure board is to be believed it seems that sixteen different flights will be leaving at exactly 7.05am. Security is intense. I try to walk through a scanner holding my boarding pass but I'm told I need to put it in a plastic tray. It looks very lonely. I worry that the rubber strips at the entrance to the scanner will flick it out of the tray and I'll never see it again. Issy has to go through twice, because she didn't take her iPad out of her bag. Her new hip sets off the scanner both times, so the same security lady needs to frisk her twice. Even the security lady thinks this is funny. I didn't think that security people at airports thought that anything was funny.

We fly with an apparently budget airline that we've never heard of before called Air Europa. I sit in the back row and Issy sits in the row in front of me. I can only fit in the seat if my legs hang out into the aisle, so I get run over by the food trolley every time it comes past. A flight attendant tells me very aggressively that if I want to eat I have to pay.

We arrive in Paris where security is even more intense. We get in a queue behind a couple with a baby that looks like it's only a few weeks old. The mother and the baby are entwined together by a several metre long scarf. The guards force her to unwrap herself from the baby, and for a few horrible seconds I have visions of it being dumped in a plastic tray and disappearing into the scanner.

We arrive in Calvi and wait patiently for our luggage. Our luggage must have really liked Paris; it seems that it's decided to stay there. The lady at the lost luggage window tells us that it will arrive on the next flight later this afternoon.

The mountains behind the bay are spectacularly steep and craggy. They have a bluish tinge to them, and come right down to the sea, which is also an intense blue colour.

Issy didn't get much sleep last night in our stuffy hot roof space, so she's now very tired. She's also not very happy. It seems that our room doesn't have a bar fridge. She says that even one star hotel rooms have bar fridges. I'm not sure that this is true, but I sense that now is probably not the right time to argue the point. She asks me how we're supposed to have drinks on our balcony overlooking the stunning coastal scenery if we can't keep them cold. I think this might be a rhetorical question. She noticed on the way to our room that there was a vending machine selling cold soft drinks near reception; she tells me that I need to keep a good supply of change on hand. She's also very hungry. The receptionist tells us that there are two restaurants very close by, one to the south, and one to the north. We walk towards the one to the south. It looks very nice and we see that there are lots of people eating lunch in its very attractive garden courtyard. We ask for a table for two, but the waitress says that they've finished serving lunch for the day. We trudge disappointedly back past the hotel to the other restaurant. This looks a bit more hopeful. There are lots of tables in the street outside it, although there don't seem to be overly many people sitting at them. When we get closer we see that there are in fact no people sitting at them; the restaurant is closed. Issy's unhappiness has reached new heights. We trudge on and eventually find another restaurant. Miraculously it's both open and serving lunch.

We walk through the streets of Calvi and down to the waterfront. The marina is full of luxury yachts, and is partially encircled by a promenade lined with wall to wall restaurants. The original citadel sits high on the hill above the harbour, and the mountains provide a perfect backdrop to the whole stunning scene.

Issy says that she needs to know that she can eat and drink whenever the mood takes her, so she suggests that we get some drinks and nibbles from a supermarket. I decide that I must try to solve the bar fridge issue. I have a cunning plan. The supermarket sells eskies. It also sells gigantic blocks of ice that look like they would probably take several weeks to melt. I grab an esky from the shelf and an enormous heavy ice block from the freezer and proudly haul them through the aisles to show to Issy. It seems she doesn't share my enthusiasm for this cunning plan. She thanks me for trying to help, but she says that she thinks she'll be able to survive on cold drinks from the vending machine. I think that I might be spending a significant proportion of our time here in the hotel lift.

We walk back to the hotel and have a long siesta, interrupted only by a phone call from reception to say that our luggage has decided to grace us with its presence.

We walk back to the waterfront to find somewhere to have dinner. We pass what we assume is a memorial to the victims of the recent terror attack in Nice in the form of photos of the victims posted around one of the gates to the citadel. Sadly most of them look very young. The receptionist told us when we checked into the hotel that we'd arrived on a very special day. 15th August is apparently a day of particular religious significance in Calvi, and she told us that there would be a fireworks display tonight. We notice that there is a very strong police and military presence along the waterfront, which is perhaps not too surprising given the recent events in Nice. The waterfront area is packed. We order mussels which are apparently a local delicacy. They're superb. At around 9pm the staff at all the restaurants start to go around and pull down all the umbrellas. It feels a bit early to be getting everyone to leave, but it seems they have a much higher purpose in mind. At exactly 11pm we listen to a very poignant broadcast speech in both French in English about the need for peace. All service at the restaurants has now stopped, and the crowd is silent. Straight after the speech the fireworks start. It seems that the restaurant staff were pulling down the umbrellas so that everyone could see the show. The fireworks are accompanied by a light display on the walls of the citadel, and by music including "Let it Be", and "The Sounds of Silence". The sound system that they play this on wouldn't be out of place in a world class concert hall. The show goes on for about half an hour. I'm not usually a great fan of fireworks, but this is absolutely something else. We both get very emotional, and we sense that we're not the only ones. I think Nice is very much on everyone's minds. The show finishes to loud applause and the blare of horns from boats in the marina. We're speechless. This has been a very unexpected highlight, and something that I don't think either of us will forget for a long time.

Not for the first time on this trip I'm having trouble with the language. We're in France now but I still find myself saying "si", "gracias" and "por favor". I think I've used three different languages in a single sentence more than once today. Thankfully most people seem quite understanding of my linguistic ineptitude.

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19th August 2016

How lucky you were to be at the waterfront on this night...the story gave me goosebumps.

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