Often people ask me for the best place I ever visited. I am very bad at answering that question, as the more I travel the more it appears that I pretty much like every place I go to. And here is one more island to add to the growing list best place I ever visited. Corsica, the Island in the Mediterranean Sea is part of France but geographically closer to Italy.
Napoleon Bonaparte was born on Corsica but most often people think of independence fighters when talking about the island. They are the Corsicans who want to protect their language, their heritage, and their land. They are the ones who fight for their home and who aren’t keen on strangers moving in. There is talk of exploding car bombs and also the odd holiday home but a waiter at a restaurant tells me I shall not worry, since this is not going to happen in the tourist season.
Excellent news, albeit a bit strange come to think of it. I oppose violence but on the other hand it helped not to turn Corsica into another Benidorm. Have you ever seen pictures of the infamous holiday resort on the Spanish coast, plastered with skyscrapers? The countryside and coast line of Corsica remains unspoilt from such architectural atrocities.
All grown-ups were once children ...
Corsica is wild. I arrive and fall head over heels in love with the island. I think of Antoine de Saint Exepury and his very true words from the novel The Little Prince: “All grown-ups were once children... but only few of them remember it.” I remember it vividly and I am still able to enjoy life every day and to laugh a lot and to look with wonder at the world. If it is not that easy for you, make your way to Corsica, it is an island where you can look at the world with a child’s eyes without feeling silly. The island is picture perfect and reminds you at every corner of how beautiful our world is. The sea is of a colour which can easily be described with the best adjectives for blue, I mean it, I wouldn’t say it just to fill this page. Small villages have prominent homes in the green mountainsides and the local cheese and wine is of outstanding quality.
Corsica - What to do
Starting days with to die for brioches sprinkled with sugar plus some coffees, what more can I want? Beach walks, swimming, snorkeling, hiking, and fine dining make my trip most memorable. I spent my nights with cheese, wine and listening to live music. It is the end of summer and the island becomes more deserted. The road trip, I take around the tip in the far north of the island, is so curvy that I feel like a race car driver.
No matter in which direction I look, the view is fantastic, be it the mountains, the sea or the sky, there is not one single boring view. If there are few resorts in the south, it seems there is no tourism in the far north, and that this region of the island is not marred by development. The island has got a little bit of everything for everyone, and more than 2.7 million tourists visit the island each year. There are glitzy yacht people in Bonifacio, playing kids at busy family beaches, campers and there are, well, everyone who else there is, but not in an overwhelming into-your-face-way.
No matter in which direction I look, the view is fantastic, be it the mountains, the sea or the sky, there is not one single boring view. If there are few resorts in the south, it seems there is no tourism in the far north, and that this region of the island is not marred by development. The island has got a little bit of everything for everyone, and more than 2.7 million tourists visit the island each year. There are glitzy yacht people in Bonifacio, playing kids at busy family beaches, campers and there are, well, everyone who else there is, but not in an overwhelming into-your-face-way.
Antoine de Saint Exepury started in Corsica for his last trip and vanished, he is believed to have died over the Mediterranean Sea but to this day circumstances are not proven entirely. At Bastia airport there is a monument for the author.
How to get to Corsica
You can get by ferry to the Corsican ports of Bastia, Calvi, Ajaccio, Propriano, Porto Vecchio from the French ports of Nice, Marseille, Toulon and from the Italian ports of Livorno, Civitavecchia, Genova. There are 4 airports on the island. The 2 main airports are Napoleon Bonaparte in Ajaccio and Poretta in Bastia. There are also 2 smaller ones Sainte-Catherine in Calvi and Figari in Sud-Corse.