R. Doug Wicker — Author

It was approaching 12:30 p.m. when our bus arrived back into Ajaccio. We would soon return to our pickup point just outside the cruise terminal. In the background above and in the photo below you can see our competition that day for resources, NCL’s Epic (for more on this ship, see: Fun Photo Friday — Epic photos of an Epic ship). The Epic is a nice ship, but we were not happy to see her in port this day. Her passengers outnumbered us by several thousand, and she stole our berth, which required us to tender into port.

A few minutes later and we were strolling the tree-lined Av. Antoine Serafini:

At the west end of Place Foch, which is a plaza ringed by Av. Antoine Serafini, is Statua di Napoleone, a native son of Ajaccio, Corsica. The statue depicts Napoleon as a Roman emperor.

Continuing west, the two plaza-ringing branches of Av. Antoine Serafini merge together to become Av. du Premier Consul:

You may recall from last week a photo of this area taken from our arrival into port aboard Vision of the Seas. In that photo was what appeared to be a large crown. Well, that crown turned out to be a large light display, and here it is close up:

Turn south and follow Av. Eugène Macchini to find this additional small park-like outdoor dining area adjacent to Cathedral Santa Maria Assunta (the topic of next Monday’s article):

Now let’s just wander around as we head slowly back to the east:

Слава Україні! (Slava Ukraini!)

Our bus took us as far as Torra de a Parata, where we could see in the distance the Phare des Îles Sanguinaires (Sanguinaires Islands Lighthouse). After that we turned around and headed back into Ajaccio, hugging the coast along highway D111 the whole way. Today I’m going to let the beaches and other sights do the talking for me, as there’s not a whole lot to say but there is much to see. It was almost nonstop beaches the entire way. On Wednesday I’ll get a bit more descriptive as we leave the bus and head into town on foot. Until then: