Centuri Port south to Saint-Florent

Centuri makes a great stopover. Once a Roman port, it's tiny and seems unspoilt, although they say it gets busy busy busy in peak summer. It must be bedlam. It's so small.

We stayed in Hôtel-Restaurant du Pêcheur, a pink-painted establishment right by the water's edge where we also dined on seafood pasta, accompanied with bottles of Pietra beer.

We have breakfast there too, then set off, climbing back up to the main route. We call in at the shop at the junction and the owner is pleased to see us again. She sounds German.

We buy snacks for our ride to St Florent, about 60 kilometers south: a piece of cake. We're in no hurry to speed through this gorgeous place.

Rounding bends as the road hugs the coast, we can see in the far distance the high, snow-covered peaks that make up the top-most section of the island's jagged spine. We'll be going there, but not yet. That'll be on our return leg.

The scenery this side of the cape is more dramatic, as we knew it would be. On the slopes ahead is our route, more or less horizontal; a faint line cut across the lushness. Maquis - similar to heathland - covers the landscape, an array of low-growing shrubs like sage, buckthorn, juniper and myrtle.

Napolean said he could recognize Corsica from its smell. Wild flowers line the verges.

There's no traffic and it's hot again.

About 20 kilometers into our day we get to a village with a grocery store and buy some goat's milk cheese, a baguette and a few tomatoes, plus some bananas, walk across the D80 to the shade of some trees, sit on the parapet wall by the road and set about having a picnic lunch.

After we fill our bottles with cool water from a communal tap and pedal off to find that the road continues as before, high above the sea, a glorious corniche with few vehicles and superb views.

On we go.

It's amazing.

If anything, it's even more dramatic, the route high above the sea, clinging to the steep rock. Some sections cut though outcrops, other bits built out from the mountains have low walls that drop doooownnn on the other side. You wouldn't want to fall. We arc around bays - like Marine di Giottani - and keep stopping to take photos.

Our average speed is in single digits.

As the sun drops lower, we arrive at Nonza, its pink church right by the road. Across is a small plaza with some tourists and I buy an ice cream, leave Dave with the bikes and trek up to the village's famous tower, a squat stone structure, centuries old with four flat sides and minimal window openings.

I climb up and look west, out across the seascape. There's another ruin on the rise of a high, rocky promontory, silhouetted against the glare of the sparkling Med. It's time we got going.

There's a gentle descent to Saint-Florent, where we camp in our tents at a half-empty place on the far edge of town.

Today's ride: 80 km (50 miles)
Total: 90 km (56 miles)

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