Corsica is known as the ‘Island of Beauty’ and I’d add an adjective in there – the ‘Island of terrifying Beauty’ due to the crazy roads carved high but not deep in the jagged mountain tops, which are the only means to access the beauty of the island (the seaside and mountain villages, beaches and hiking trails). There is a little train that runs between some of the major towns and 4 airports, but the roads provide the main way of getting around. We spent our week on Corsica exploring the Upper North of Corsica around our town of L’Île-Rousse and ventured east as far as Saint Florent (almost to Bastia) and south as far as Ajaccio (half way to the Southern tip and Bonafaccio) and here’s what we discovered.
The geography and geology of Corsica
Over the centuries this rustique island has been farmed, fortified, and fancified for tourism. The unusual shaped resembles a cheese board, which the tourists shops have taken advantage of to sell cheese boards imprinted with Corsican towns around its edge). It is 183km long and 85km wide in its broadest part and has 339,178 inhabitants, making Corsica the least populated territory in Metropolitan France.
It felt like a much bigger island and that’s because it takes so long to get around (for scale, Tasmania, Australia, is 7.43 times as big as Corsica) due to 2/3 of the island being mountainous with 120 peaks exceeding 2000 m – Monte Cinto at 2706 m being the highest. We drove up into the little villages behind our town of L’le-Rousse and it took 20 mins to get to the closest village of Corbara, 8 km away as you can rarely go faster than 40km/hr due to the hairpin bends, narrow – sometimes 1 car wide – sections of road and steep cliff edges.
The people of Corsica
Corsica is famous as the birthplace of Napoléon Bonaparte. It has a chequered anthropological history with many slaves sent here from Africa to work the land. Yet they seem to own this as the emblem of Corsica is a Moor’s head with a bandana on the forehead (lifted from over their eyes) to symbolise the freedom of the African slave trade that was prolific on the island.
The Corsicans seemed to us to be a mix of Italian, French and Spanish both in the language and foods. And like the Spanish and Italians – they love their bocce/petanque – with games played all day every day in any available gravel patch! The Corsican language, U Corsu, is a combination of Low Latin and medieval Tuscan, and is still taught in primary school and used by many on the island although French is the official language.
The Corsican food
The food in Corsica is fantastically fresh with many boucheries selling local wild boar, veal, and lamb, epiceries selling cured meats that come from special breeding of their pigs and fromageries curating a range of locally produced sheep and goats cheese – which goes beautifully with the island’s organic honey – as we enjoyed on a wood fired pizza from the food van next to our apartment!
Corscia is also known for its fruit (citrus and stone fruit are amazing), nuts (chestnuts and almonds) olives and olive oils and herbs (much of the island is blanketed by the maquis, a fragrant scrubland composed of aromatic plants such as lavender, juniper, cistus) which turns up in salts and local dishes. And then there are the biscuteries – little stores selling crunchy biscuits flavoured with local herbs and honey. The specialties in the restaurants focus on fish and wild boar washed down with a delicious Corsican rosè or vin rouge – which the island produces an abundance of!
Active Corsica
Many people come to Corsica to randonee (hike) as the island has one of the most spectacular long-distance trials in the world – the GR 20, which traverses the island from Calenzana in the north to Conca in the southeast (520km). The steep, twisty mountain roads also prove irresistible to motorbikes and (irrationally in my mind) to cyclists (who could be blown off the roads by the high winds, knocked over by cars or hit by a herd of goats at any moment!).
There are many more accessible boardwalks and footpaths along the beaches and most of the ports also hire out boats or offer boat rides out to the calanques in the cliffs or smaller islands off the main one.
Corsica’s beaches
We came to explore and discover the famous white beaches and turquoise waters you see in so many Corsican photographs. And we were not disappointed. Corsica claims that 1/3 of its 1000km of coastline boasts beaches – however not all of them are white and blue! Here’s what we found:
Plage du Napolean and Plage du Caruchettu, L’Île-Rousse
These two beaches were the finest we saw on Corsica! Of course, they were also in our back yard so getting to them was easy but truly they had the deepest sapphire water, crystal clear and pure white sand going in and out. They were not too crowded – the further Caruchettu was very quiet and you could rent a lounge and umbrella or settle into the soft sand. There’s a lovely wide promenade running along the beaches making access easy too.
Bodri and Ghjunchitu beach, L’Île-Rousse
We thought that Bodri beach was our closest beach and decided to walk there from our apartment on our first morning in L’Île-Rousse. Turns out it was about 3kms away through the E.Leclerc shopping centre, down a busy road, through a campground, along a rocky path and voila – we were actually at Ghjunchitu beach not Bodri beach! Ghjunchitu is a rustic, quiet beach with a small beach bar on the sand and board hire shack/lifeguard in July and August. It has a paid carpark with a dirt track to access the beach and was deserted when we arrived in early June. We enjoyed a swim in the lovely deep clear waters then walked around the cliffs to Bodri beach – which is the beach in front of the campground, so with a few more families. Bodri is a cresent shaped beach and you need to park a long way up on the road and walk down (we walked through the campground) to access.
Plage de Lozari
This beautiful beach is about 25km north of L’Île-Rousse and is a lovely creamy sandy long crescent beach with a cute outdoor restaurant called La Payotte that was very popular at lunch time. There’s a large dirt car park with shady trees and you can choose to walk right towards the wider part of the beach or left towards the La Payote restaurant end where it is more sheltered if there’s a westerly blowing. You can also walk around the cliffs from the west end up to a fabulous lookout tower and gaze back down over the beach. The water is clear and safe for swimming too.
Plage de l’Ostriconi
This is one of those beaches that is famous for its remoteness- and hard to-get-to-ness! It is another 10 mins further to the north from Plage de Lozari and is the last beach before the Agriates desert starts. There is a famous 3 day walk from here around the cliff tops of the desert to Saint Florent which looked amazing. We parked the car in the carpark and started following a paved road – which I think used to be the road around the island until it crumbled. We saw a sign pointing to le Plage and began our descent into the wetlands- marshlands which lead to the beach. We had to scramble through lots of mushy slippery puddle-patches where people had thrown a few twigs/logs in the water to help navigate, then across a wobbly bridge over the river and then took off our shoes and had to wade through the last thigh high river to get to the beach. The wind was whipping the waves up and we sought shelter at the far end of the beach to eat our lunch and contemplate a swim. It looked too rough to swim and we noticed a lot of people scrambling up the rock face above our heads so decided to try this way to get back to our car and after some clamouring found ourselves back on the same crumbling road we’d descended from earlier on. There’s so many nice beaches on Corsica there’s no real reason to go to this one.
The beach train
There is a little 2-carriage beach train called “le Train des Plages – U Trinichellu” that runs from L’Île-Rousse around to Calvi – the next main town to the south. The train stops at Plage de Bodri (actually at Ghjunchitu beach), Plage d’Algajola, Plage de Sant Ambroggio, Plage de l’Arinella and Plage de Sainte Restitude – with each place boasting a seaside restaurant or two for lunch before (or after) our swim.
There’s 3 stops in Calvi and we got off at the last one. It takes about 40 mins by train and 30 mins to drive – even though its only 22 kms away – says a lot for how small and windy the roads are! A couple of tips re this train – it is very busy and crowded and they sell more tickets than there are seats. It’s a battle to fight your way on and grab a seat – especially if you want a window one. We thought we’d have it to ourselves – instead we had to fight for a seat and managed to find two across the aisle from each other up the very front. Jamie sat next to a version of Pip Lyons who was a tour leader from England with a group of Train lovers exploring Corsica by train. She gave us lots of tips and was v nice. I sat next to a typical young male French backpacker hiking the Grand Route across Corsica (550 kms) who smelt and looked like a real Frenchman!
The towns of Corsica
L’Île-Rousse
This was our town. And what a beautiful place! It is in the heart of Balagne region which is located on the northwest coast of Corsica. It was s small prosperous farming town for a thousand years until it became a trading post for the Romans and suffered so many invasions, that in 1758, Pascal Paoli fortified the town to protect and preserve it. Some remnants from this time still exist such as the ‘Tour Génoise’, the Moulin a vent tower plus the Marché couvert (fresh produce every day 9am -12pm).
The Tour Génoise is out on the Ile de la Pietrai which runs along the west side of th Port where the ferries come in. This is a lovely (slightly windy) walk that stretches up to the 1600s ‘Tour Génoise’ and 2 lighthouses. It’s a good climb up to the top square, white lighthouse but worth it for the magnificent views. The centre of the town is around the Place Paoli , which has non stop pétanque games which you can watch from one of the many shady cafes around the square. There’s three pretty pedestrian streets around the Marie north- west of Place Paoli that has loads of lovely boutiques, produce stores, cafes, restaurants, cocktail bars. We enjoyed Mojitos, muddled fresh by a charming bartender at La Bodega one evening and bought Corsican biscuits at one of the cute biscuteries. The town also winds around the east side of the square where there’s more commercial stores and restaurants. Plus there’s a strip of colourful outdoor cafes in front of the railways line and the A Marinella promenade. This promenade is perfect for an evening stroll and we enjoyed a glass of wine as the sun set a few nights from one of the many seats arranged along the path. Plus we had the most wonderful dinner at Restaurant Marinella which lays tables out on the sand, and has live musicians on a Friday night. We scrunched our feet in the sand, sipped a Corsican Rosè and ate fresh fish as the sun went down. We danced barefoot in the sand with some Italians from the next table and it was simply perfect in so many ways.
Ajaccio
This the island’s largest city and the capital of Corsica. It has a huge port and marina that dominate the town and a railway line running along the shore.
The city has a few tourist pedestrian streets in the ‘old town’ and a more sophisticated boulevard of shops that run above the tourist strip plus a large urban sprawl with many tall apartment buildings. It is not the pretty side of Corsica and is best used as a service town for tourists to land on the mid-west coast of Corsica before moving on to quainter destinations.
Calvi
This is a delightful town at the end of the line for the beach train – which we took to spend a day here. We explored the old fort up on the hill – quite impressive …and then walked back in to the old town for delicious crepes at a café overlooking the water. Then we had a promenade along the 2 km timber boardwalk and part of the 5km sandy beach, caught the 4pm train back to Li’le-Rousse and had a swim back in our lovely clear waters.
Corbara
This small town was just 8km (but 20 mins) above us. Technically, our apartment was in Corbara – at the very border of the municipality on the lowest reaches but the actual old town lay a few dozen hairpin bends up the road. We walked around the old square and a museum, up to the town hall and two churches and enjoyed the lovely views. Upper Corbara is typical of many of the smaller hamlets tucked into the mountains all around Corsica.
Saint Florent
Saint Florent is a real gem of a town but didn’t quite live up to its legendary status as the gem of Corsica! That could be because we had to drive an hour and a half on the terrifyingly high and narrow roads to get there but also because the beach (Playa de la Roya ) here is brown, narrow and covered in (natural) beach litter of leaves, seed pods and twigs. Still the little town is charming with beautifully presented shops and loads of cafes and restaurants with beautiful water views. It is more of a lunch place rather than a beach place. And a yachties place as there is a big Marina which separates the beach – Playa de la Roya from the Old town. There’s big 15th Century Citadels at the top of the town which has good views and the Eglise Saint Anne.
Getting there:
We caught a ferry over to Corsica from Toulon – which is a busy port town with quite a charming pedestrian only section of lovely little streets and squares and a big food hall with lots of little stands of food from every country. It was a 7.5 hours journey on a rather overcast day on a 8 storey massive ship full of backpackers, families, dogs and couples. It was an impressive feat seeing them board the many 100s of cars and we managed to follow the” tourne a gauche, puis droit, maintenant, tout droit” instructions and wedge our wagon in to the front of the ship on deck 3. We had booked a reclining seat but these were in a squishy section of the ship and we were not allocated together so we decided to sit at the tables in the café instead. Unfortunately they had the A/C on super cold and everyone was draping whatever they had brought up fro their cars over themselves to keep warm. It was interesting to see how many people bring their dogs on board and we were amused to see they have pet toilets. Some people brought their own deck chairs and others blow up lilos to sleep on for the journey! We returned to the mainland on the ferry from Ajaccio – which took 9.5 hours. We had booked the reclining seats again but they switched the ferry type and time on us so allocated us cabins as it was the night crossing ferry with little seating. Both ferry trips were very smooth but a little long. There is no wifi or 4G connection so make sure you download videos or messages before you travel plus food and water is expensive on board so pack lots of both. Oh and a jumper incase the A/C is cranked up too!
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