The day at Avignon dawned with rain and a gusty SE wind. We were at the centre of a triple point Mediterranean depression which had moved in overnight and later in the day, thunderstorms were forecast as this reached the Alps Maritime. The big problem was icing, forecast from 5,000 ft upwards. A look outside showed the main base was around 4,000 ft with ragged sc below so I amended my route to go down the Rhone valley towards Marseilles and then take a dog leg round the coast before joining my original route half way to Corsica. This added 50 nm to the route but had the advantage of lower minimum airway levels so that if I met any serious ice, I could drop down to warmer levels without running into any solid objects!
The initial climb out was bumpy and the allotted flight level of FL70 kept me in altostratus with the odd embedded cu,sc. This strategy worked well; I picked up a modest amount of ice but nothing to worry about and eventually after about an hour and a half came into the clear just east of Corsica.
A short time later the coast of Italy came into view under a high cs overcast and with a lower sc/cu undercast as the picture above shows. The overcast cs slowly disappeared and as the sun came out, so did the cu/sc develop with tops around the 12,000 ft much as forecast. Meanwhile I had climbed to my usual cruising level of FL110. Corfu was cloudy with light showers and we arrived after an 800 nm flight in 5 hr 10 mins. We were met by the nice Olympic handling lady who remembered us from last year; fuel was rapidly obtained and she gave us a lift to our overnight hotel.
Corfu is noticeably milder than Avignon but very quiet as the middle of the off season; tomorrow we move on to Sitia where we spend a couple of nights.
