Not what it seems

I caught the same morning train as yesterday but stayed on it to Calvi, the end of the line. 

The citadel on a crag at the end of the bay is really striking, both from across the bay as the train approaches the town, and from the promontory just behind it where I went to look at it against the purple mountains in the evening sun.

In between times, among the throngs of tourists in the citadel and in the town and harbour beneath it, I tried, and failed, to find something that made this town more than just a very pretty tourist destination.

It is crammed full of bars, restaurants and shops selling food and drink, and souvenirs and crafts at prices that people allow themselves to indulge in only on holiday. But I am a solo traveller, so I don't easily relax into a bar or restaurant.

It has beautiful beaches nearby but, as a fair-skinned person who burns and who dislikes the stickiness of salt on skin, I have never enjoyed the sunbathe/swim routine of beaches.

For at least those two reasons, I need a town to show me something else - a sense of the lives of the people who live there - and, apart from when I overheard a conversation in Corsican between a customer and the cashier in the small Spar, I couldn't feel Calvi's pulse. Even those lighting candles in the small, worn cathedral seemed to be tourists.

The house in the citadel where some people allege that Christopher Columbus was born felt like a metaphor for the town. Columbus was a Genoan at a time when Corsica was ruled by Genoa and there is minimal evidence of his early life. The house claimed by some as his birthplace in Calvi was destroyed by Horatio Nelson and his marauders in the siege of 1794. I, along with a Dutch tour group, was among the tourists who flock to read its plaque, take photos of its damaged walls and rubble overgrown by grasses and who thereby give meaning to an empty, unused, disputed place.

To look for life beyond today's invaders, I walked to the edge of the tourist bit of town and found a small block of flats, a town hall and a two-storey car park. I googled for things to see and do in Calvi. Most were about things out of the town and almost all were aimed at tourists but I am sorry I missed a photography exhibition in Batiment K in the citadel.

Am I just a grump?

Photo - a carved skulI found attached to a wall.