Had Napoleon been born any earlier he would have been Italian and not French.  Napoleon was born in Ajaccio, Corsica’s capital, in 1769.   Corsica had been ruled by the Italian state of Genoa from 1284 to 1755 when it became a self-governing Italian speaking Republic.  It had been in some stage of revolt since 1729.  Genoa ceded the island to France in 1768 to cover debts Genoa incurred in trying to hold onto Corsica and France had the power to hold it, officially annexing Corsica in 1769, the year Napoleon was born.

Corsicans have their own language, which is a mix of Italian with some elements of Catalan.  French is currently the dominant language.  UNESCO lists Corsican as “endangered.”  Corsica, while part of France, has a limited degree of autotomy with a local assembly, and an executive council.  Corsica is scheduled to get more autotomy in the next few years.  There is still a Corsican independence movement and while an agreement was signed with France within the last decade a jailed leader of the movement was killed in prison in 2022 under mysterious circumstances.   Then, in February, a Corsican independence advocate was killed by a sniper at his mother’s funeral.  There have been no charges and speculation on the motives range from a French government assassination to a vendetta killing to a mob hit.  If you visit Corsica the Century Travelers’ Club says you are entitled to claim it as a separate country over and above France. I think they may be trying to drum up members by ginning up the numbers.  They consider Alaska and Hawaii as separate countries for their count.  They also call Prince Edward Island separate and you can drive there on a bridge from mainland Canada.   I am not a member of the club because it seems like a silly game, (but one I sometimes engage in with other travelers, silly can still be fun.) Counting to 100 depends on how you define country and how you define ‘in’.  They fight wars over this stuff.  I know, I’ve been caught up in a few of them.

It was hot and Suzi and I thought we would just walk around a bit, to give us another country to claim if we ever wanted to become Century travelers.   But we planned to take it easy.  It had been a rough few days.  Brian and Fiona were both sick (They are ok now).  Fiona had been tested for Influenza A and was in quarantine in her room.  Brian was not feeling well and self-quarantined.   It was a difficult doctor’s visit for Fiona and Brian.  The clinic was open until 10 AM.  Fiona’s appointment was at 9.  At 9:30 the bridge called a drill, a simulated medical emergency which required the medical staff to report to the site of the emergency, leaving everyone in the sick bay.  This upset Fiona, who was running a fever, enraged Brian and confused the entire process.  Brian’s reaction was “If they had just waited another half hour.”   While I recognize the need to call drills unexpectedly to test response, calling one during medical office hours when the sick bay was being slammed with people who were sick with flu like symptoms or were suffering heat exhaustion seemed too much.    Suzi and I went in later, at Brian’s suggestion, to get Tamiflu as a prophylactic and I spoke with Sara, a nurse who had attended to me on our Pole to Pole cruise.  She told us that they were having a rough time between treating flu symptoms, testing to make sure none of it was COVID and the extra patient load from heat exhaustion.  I sent a note to HAL through guest services suggesting that when they call a drill, they look at the clinic’s hours and take into consideration the needs of real patients in real time over a simulation.  I got a call from Kimberly, one of the officers I had met on an earlier cruise apologizing and saying that they would take what happened during the drill as a learning experience. 

Liz has an AFS “Brother” who lives in Corsica.  He stayed with her family in Colorado when she was in Junior High.  She planned to visit him with her family.  But with Brian and Fiona both in quarantine she asked if Suzi and I would join them to fill out the family.  We enthusiastically agreed.  Having lunch with residents is preferable to almost any other activity.   Jose had been an exchange student from Spain.  He was in school in Paris and met Ann, who is from Corsica, and after living in various places in France and Spain they settled in Corsica near her family’s farm.  They have a flat in Ajaccio that overlooks the harbor and sent Liz a picture of Oosterdam when it docked.  They have three kids, two in university and one finishing high school.  We had a three hour lunch at a harborside café.

During lunch we saw Kevin walking by, he had been out with Shannon but she went back to the ship and he was looking at the way local gillnetters were rigged.  Kevin grew up on the docks with mostly fishermen kids.  We called him over and he joined us after lunch.  It was a good call.  Kevin’s interests triggered conversation.   Ann and Jose told us about how the fisheries have declined because of environment issues and when Kevin showed them pictures of political posters that he took we got into a discussion about the independence movement, the Communist Party, which is trying to revive based on Nationalism, the use of the Corsican language, and the assassination in February that I mentioned earlier.   One poster read “The Bourgeoise want Imperialist War; they will get a class war” and another “The United People are intimidated by nothing.”   The third poster is a satire of Napolean and Josephine and Napolean’s wandering eye. 

We walked a little along the waterfront and Timothy, one of their sons, pointed out some of the sights, like the City Hall, and the Place Foch, with its Napoleon Statue.  The city was well designed to catch summer breezes and block winter winds.  You can see this from the upper decks of the ship better than from ground level