Lighthouse of the Week, November 7-13, 2021: Fanale di Senetosa, Corsica, France

 

I thought that I had featured a lot of Corsican lighthouses here on the blog, but when I looked back, it turned out that I had only featured four, in three posts, because one of the posts was about a pair of lighthouses that stand on either side of the entrance to a harbor.  (Search with "Corsica" on the blog to find them.)

So, since I only had featured three, and not very often, I picked another one.  This one is unique because it has what looks like a big keeper's house between two lighthouse towers, which somewhat resemble chimneys.  The Lighthouse Directory says that it's not clear if they ever lit a lamp in the second tower, which currently has a big red fabric rectangle on top of it.

There's a small Web site about it, because there's a nature refuge around it that takes its name from the lighthouse. You can hike to it.  It does not appear that you can drive to it.  Campomoro-Senetosa (but that's not how it's spelled in the URL)

It's on the southwestern coast of the island;  I had to zoom out a bit to show where that is, so the map shows most of the southern half of Corsica.  The satellite view shows a couple of what look like some very nice isolated beaches where it would be possible to do beachy things that are best to do on isolated beaches (wink).

Now let's get some words from the Lighthouse Directory. 

1892. Active; focal plane 54 m (177 ft); flash every 5 s, white or red depending on direction. Twin 15 m (49 ft) round masonry towers attached at opposite ends of a 2-story masonry keeper's house; the north tower has a 3rd order Fresnel lens, lantern and gallery, the south has a gallery and a red screen on a tripod. Building painted white; lantern, galleries and daymarker are black. Only a few twin lighthouses were built in France, but it is not clear whether the second tower here was ever lit. Located in a rugged coastal area roughly 15 km (10 mi) southwest of Grossa.

There are a lot of licensed photographs of this one, for some reason;  the four pictures below are public domain, I think.  In the third and fourth pictures you can see the red screen (whatever that's for), and the fourth pictures demonstrates the ruggedness of the adjacent coastal area.

It looks like a nice place to abide, as keeper's quarters go, but it's a long hike for groceries.