The Island of Beauty

After a week spent in Sardinia in June, I quickly decided to go and see Corsica, an island about which I'd always heard very conflicting opinions.

We split the holiday into 2 parts, the first week in Bastia and the second in Ajaccio. In Bastia we stayed at the "residence mediteranée", very cheap and nice, located in Miomo, 5 km from Bastia, and from there we toured the whole northern part, from Cap Corse down to Calvi. Particularly memorable are the beaches of Cala Genovese, Nonza, La Saleccia, which you reach by driving 12 km of unpaved road, Ostriconi and the whole beautiful coastline from Ile Rousse to Calvi, with a sea that would make even the Caribbean envious.

After almost three hours by car from Bastia we moved to Ajaccio, the regional capital, a very clean and tidy city. Here we were in a private house overlooking the "Sanguinaires islands", a unique spectacle of Corsica absolutely not to be missed. Around Ajaccio there are lots of uncrowded beaches with beautiful sand. For those who like snorkelling I recommend the beach at Ficajola, reachable from Piana via a rather dangerous road... but it's worth it! A visit to Bonifacio is worthwhile to see this little town curiously built on top of the rock and to savour the "scent" of Italy coming from the sea: in fact, leaning over from the terrace you can glimpse the Sardinian coast. I don't recommend Porto Vecchio, not for the beaches, which are beautiful, but because it's too commercial and crowded with Italians.