Four Steps in the Clouds

Patrick Garland observes the many changes in the traditional way of life in one of the most ravishing Mediterranean islands, and a Corsican village which at times can disappear into the clouds...

When Patrick Garland first encountered the Corsican shepherd village of Sant''Antonino in the 1960s, he felt he had stepped back into the nineteenth century. The old men wore suits of black corduroy, red sashes around their waists, and wide-brimmed black hats; the women carried buckets of water or washing on their heads. There was no electricity, no running water and no sanitation. Its pastoral way of life had been uninterrupted since the 9th century. When the French government offered the village a large sum of money which would buy them running water, it was the ruling aristocrat Count Savelli who refused, ''because,'' he said, ''the village has done without running water for nine hundred years, why bother about it now.'' Time passed, international tourism arrived in the Mediterranean, and Sant''Antonino is now recognised as ''one of the hundred most beautiful villages in France''. Drawing on forty years of journal entries, Patrick Garland''s beautifully observed travel memoir charts the many changes in the one of the most intriguing and traditional of Mediterranean villages.