This heading is utterly unfair, really, because everywhere we've been in Corsica has been photogenic. It's something to do with the light, I think, which is strong and clear, and contrasts strikingly with the deep shadow cast by anything standing in its way.

But there's something extra-specially photogenic about Bastia. Founded in 1378, it was the capital of Corsica for the next four centuries. It has a labyrinthine old town, centred around the citadel, and a more open-plan area, with broader streets and squares. We ran round yesterday morning clicking with abandon, while the church bells sent shivers of sound down all the alleyways, and cooks set up enough grills in one of the squares to barbecue a few dozen pigs, and traders covered the market-place with produce stalls. Today we were a little more restrained, but we still came away with nearly three dozen shots.











Bastia is also loved by the camera because of its topography. There is, you see, a high degree of wibbly-wobbliness: Narrow streets suddenly slant away at angles, or dive into tunnels; sets of steps pop up everywhere; some apartments are accessed via bridges (very cool...).






There's street art, of course:





And there's history. Those figures you can't escape in Corsica are here again:



Dorothy Carrington is a little dismissive of Bastia. But then she saw it a long time ago, when the scars of war were still evident: "Bastia is the only place in Corsica that was seriously damaged in the Second World War. In September 1943 eighty thousand Italian occupying troops laid down their arms; but some eight thousand Germans remained to be dealt with... During the first days of October the town became a battlefield... But the cruellest incident occurred on 4 October, after the last German had left, when the US Air Force, by one of the horrible misunderstandings of war, bombed the town from a great height, demolishing many buildings and killing a number of the inhabitants who had crept out of their cellars to celebrate their liberation."



Antoine-Claude Valery, not generally noted for the fulsomeness of his praise, is surprisingly enthusiastic about this city. Writing in 1837, he remarks: "The Italian reflection is very noticeable in Bastia. This ancient capital of Corsica offers a gentleness of manners and a true sociability that its new rival Ajaccio, the wild capital of the department, does not yet possess, despite the administrative buildings with which it has been decorated at great expense." He especially commends Bastia's paving-stones, which are superior to those of Milan, Florence, or Naples; in fact, he declares, Bastia is perhaps Europe's premier town for paving-stones...


Bastia is not exactly a beach place. We strolled over to Toga beach this morning, and there are other beaches back the other way along the coast, but the route to those takes you alongside a noisy road for quite a way, so we'll probably pass on that.


Which doesn't matter, because there's so much else...