Corsica

Corsica is often described as a mountain in the sea, and that is no exaggeration: a spine of granite peaks runs down the island, the highest of them, Monte Cinto, reaching 2,706 metres, with snow into early summer while people swim off the beaches below. The island was Genoese for centuries, briefly independent under Pasquale Paoli in the 1750s and 1760s, and passed to France in 1768, a year before Napoleon was born in Ajaccio.

Its own language, Corsican, close to Tuscan Italian, is still spoken, and its polyphonic singing is one of the strongest living traditions in Europe. Since 2018 the island has been governed by a single body, the Collectivité de Corse. More than a third of the island lies within a regional nature park, and the GR20, a long-distance trail along the mountain spine, is often called the toughest in Europe. Villages empty in winter and fill again in summer, when families come home for festivals and saints’ days.

For a visitor who is done with Paris, Corsica is the opposite of a city break. The coast alone is worth the trip, from the red calanques of Piana above the Gulf of Porto to the white cliffs of Bonifacio, but the interior is where the island shows itself: chestnut forests, shepherds’ huts, hilltop villages with a bar, a church and a view, and some of the finest hiking in Europe. Roads are narrow and slow, so plan fewer kilometres than the map suggests, and avoid August if you can.

• Granite peaks of the central range
• Red calanques of Piana and the Gulf of Porto
• Glacial lakes of the Restonica valley
• Chestnut forests of the Castagniccia
• White limestone cliffs of Bonifacio
• Maquis-covered hills of the Balagne

Facts

• Since 1 January 2018 the regional and two departmental authorities have been merged into a single body, the Collectivité de Corse.
• Monte Cinto (2,706 m) is the island’s highest summit.
• The Gulf of Porto, with the Calanche of Piana, the Gulf of Girolata and the Scandola reserve, was inscribed by UNESCO in 1983.
• Genoa ceded Corsica to France by the Treaty of Versailles of 1768.