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These are photos of our day in Bonafacio, France.  Bonafacio is an old fortress on the Island of Corsica (the birthplace of Napoleon), which is only 20 miles or so north of us here in La Maddalena.

Bonifacio sits atop a limestone table overlooking the ocean, overlooking  a protected harbor, about which a modern resort area has sprung into being.  

Bonifacio was considered the strongest fortress in the  Mediterranean nearly 300 years, and much of the original battlements survive to this day. 

We went here as part of an MWR tour in which they made all the travel arrangements and then left us alone to explore for the rest of the day.  I don't remember how much it was, but it wasn't terribly expensive.

Unlike La Maddalena, not many locals here spoke any English.  However, most spoke Italian to at least some degree, and this was the method by which we communicated with most of the people.  

The food was absolutely wonderful.  Crepes in France is one item you have to get checked off of your list of things to do in life.  And don't talk to us about IHOP having crepes.  We're talking about the real McCoy here, poured onto a hot plate right in front of our eyes, grilled up, smeared with strawberry jam, and served on a napkin.

For lunch, we had to guess on what to order, as the only translations we were working off of was a tiny pocket dictionary.  Our waiter understood neither English or Italiano,  so ordering consisted of a lot of pointing at menus, and shrugging of shoulders as if to say "just bring us whatever".  We did manage to decipher "chopped steak" and French Fries in time to order it for the kids.  Dan had swordfish and rice, and Katrina had a ham, cheese, and mushroom omelette which only bore a passing resemblance to an American omelet.  

The "hamburgers" had no bun (as expected) and were raw (surprise!).  Actually, they were very lightly cooked on the outside, but were raw (and cold) in the middle.

forgive me for saying it, but they were wonderful.  That was the most heavenly chunk of hamburger meat it has ever been my pleasure to eat.

The  churches were astounding.  we visited three of the five.  The newest church in the upper city is a shrine dedicated in the 1500's to the last plague victim to have died in the city.

Anyway, on to the photos:

	The protected entrance to Bonafacio has a whole bunch of these little sea caves along it		A memorial to that fascinating group of men, the French foreign legion.  Donated by the government of Algiers
	A view of the impressive fortifications on the way into the harbor.		An excellent view of the battlements, taken from the old city
	Kat and Amanda, along the waterfront, down in the "new" town.		A war memorial in a church to all the mud sloggers from Bonifacio who died in the trenches during the great war.
	Climbing the stairs up to the old city.  this is the "easy" way.  Click here to see the hard way on Bonifacio's official web site		We went on the Saturday before Easter, so a big thing for Kat was the churches.  Here is a scene of Jesus in the Tomb
	Almost there!  The entrance to the old city.  the drawbridge doesn't work anymore		A family photo taken down by the docks.
	A view looking inland down at the resort town.  Just look at that water!		Sunset?  Nahh....Just Dan playing with filters and such, but, still a very pretty view of the Med.
	A view looking back out to Sea.  You can probably get an idea of just how impregnable this place was.		A view of the city from the ferry leaving.  King Aragon's stairs (the "hard" way in) can be seen clearly on the rock face.