Not the Corsica We Imagined, But One We'll Never Forget

Let me take you to Corsica, the fourth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, at the south of France and the west of Italy. With its incredible nature and beautiful beaches, Corsica is also called l'île de beauté, the isle of beauty. It's a popular tourist destination for the French and many northern Europeans, but I feel it is less known by non-Europeans, and yet there is so much beauty to behold and discover here. Two-thirds of this island are made up by an impressive granite mountain range, stretching from the north to the south. An untouched nature called the Maquis, the dense and fragrant Mediterranean shrubland that covers a vast portion of Corsica from the mountains down to the coast. Corsica has been on my list of places to visit for as long as I can remember. So when I got a chance to film a home here, we got in our car, we took a ferry in Toulon in southern France to arrive in the southwest of Corsica in Ajaccio, where Napoleon Bonaparte was born. But he is not very loved by many Corsicans. He became the ruler of France and that, to a Corsican, makes him way too French. You have to learn about Corsica's history to understand why most Corsicans see another man as their true hero. And I will share more about that later. We arrived in Ajaccio and had about a two and a half hour drive to the home where we were going to film. And so we randomly picked three places to visit on our way there. First stop, Filitosa, a megalithic archaeological site that allows us to discover the roots of Corsica in the footsteps of the first Corsicans, and it's considered by scientists as one of the most mysterious cultural sites of the Mediterranean. as well as one of the most beautiful prehistoric art collections in Europe. Filitosa features Menhir statues, circular monuments known as Tore, and evidence of human settlement starting here 8,000 years ago. There is a huge olive tree on site that is said to be between 1250 and 2000 years old, and the on-site museum allows you to explore all the archaeological finds and prehistoric art that have been discovered here since the site was accidentally discovered in 1946. We continue our journey on small winding roads to Sartène, on top of a granite hill dominating the valley, between the mountains and the sea. Sartène is said to be the most Corsican of all Corsican towns. Sartène was built to endure. In 1551, the town was fortified against barbarian raids so that all the inhabitants of the surrounding hamlets could find refuge there. Although its first appearance is a little less welcoming and a little dark, we loved the lovely vibe of its town square, known as Place de la Libération, where we had our lunch. A classic Corsican dish, sauté de veau aux olives, a stew of veal, olives and wine. If you're a food lover like me, you will love Corsica's Italian and French inspired cuisine. Corsica is also known for its sheep's cheese and the Corsican charcuterie, which we got to taste during our trip. We continue our drive and we pass the Lion de Roccapina, a breathtaking viewpoint. We see it from the road here where we could stop, and it allows us to admire the huge pink granite rock which was eroded by water and wind, and which looks like a sculpture of a lion. It is said that the lion has been watching over the marina here since the dawn of time, and you can see a close-up of it here, an image I pulled from a website, because we didn't get to get this close. After this, we continued to Vista Corsica, the B&B where we'll be filming in the coming days, and we were warmly welcomed by Sylvain and Eric. Although the weather on Corsica is beautiful year-round, Our trip turned out to be pretty eventful because of extreme weather conditions. We were supposed to film the next day but the weather was stormy and dark, and so we decided to explore Bonifacio, a medieval town with its historic citadel located on top of white cliffs. We were hoping to be able to walk along the coastal path We planned to explore the narrow streets of the citadelle before the predicted heavy rains and storms would arrive. We had surprisingly nice weather in the morning, and the coastal walk was beautiful. I can only imagine how much more beautiful it must be when the sun is out. We wandered the small streets of the Citadelle and headed back down to the marina, where we sat in a cafe for a coffee, and when we saw impressive dark clouds rolling from over the sea, we quickly headed back to our car and drove back to Vista Corsica in the heaviest rains that we've ever seen, and we're Dutch, so we're kind of used to getting some rain. Later news reports shared that part of North East Corsica were flooded and back at Vista Corsica we went for a cozy night, had a lovely dinner in an incredible restaurant just a short drive from the B&B and enjoyed a good night's sleep, hoping we could start filming the home tour the next day. We enjoyed a lovely last breakfast at Vista Corsica and said goodbye to Eric and Sylvain. Before heading north we made a stop at the Santa Julia beach which is known to be one of the most beautiful beaches of Corsica. There were heavy winds this day but the beach is very secluded and it was such a tranquil little spot where I would have loved to linger and take a swim. But we wanted to head north because we didn't know what we would find after the heavy rainfall. And so we followed the east coast and we actually saw some of the remains of the flooding of the previous day. We stopped for a simple lunch on the beach and then arrived north in the town of Oleta. Oleta is known as the pearl of Nebbio. Nebbio is a region that has always been prosperous and fertile. And the village really was very beautiful with lots of beautiful old buildings, churches and a convent. And we decided to finish this day to take the little hike straight from our holiday apartment to this convent. The next day we took a short drive to Saint-Florent, a coastal town. Where we walked the Littoral, the hiking trail following the coast. I didn't really film anything here, but the hike was really beautiful. Although the sun didn't really want to come out. I really felt that I wanted to explore more of the raw and untouched inland nature of Corsica. And so the next day we drove to the Scala di Santa Regina, an eroded granite corridor of the Golo River, the main river of Corsica. Scala means ladder or stairs in Italian and Corsican, referring to the natural stair-like switchbacks and dry stone paths carved into the rock. We would have loved to hike a small part of the ancient mule track, the Sentier de la Transhumance, a hiking trail that leads past waterfalls, gorges and mountain villages, but it's highly recommended to avoid after rainfall. For thousands of years, the Sentier de la Transhumance was the exact path that shepherds used to move their sheep and goats away from the scorching coastal heat up into the cooler summer mountain pastures. Instead, we admire the impressive mountain range and canyon while driving on the D-84. From here it was only a short drive to Corte, which was the capital of the short-lived Corsican Republic, declared an independent state in 1755 by Pasquale Paoli, who sought to liberate Corsica from its ruler at the time, the Republic of Genoa. Here we found a very authentic vibe. We passed a statue of Jean-Pierre Gaffory, a hero of Paoli's revolutionary movement, who was assassinated in 1750. His former home, which you see behind him, is still showing the bullet holes. Besides his battle for Corsican independence, Paoli also founded the university here in Corte, which still is the only university on the island. The Corsican Republic fell when the island was taken over by France in 1769. This is actually the year that Napoleon was born here on Corsica, who later became a very famous but French ruler. Today Corsica is officially part of France, but it still is a delicate thing to say. Corsica has a long history of fighting for its independence while dealing with repeated attacks and colonization from the Romans, Greeks, Italians and France, because yes, most Corsicans experience the French as colonizers. To this day, it's Paoli, far more than Napoleon, who is Corsica's national hero. We find his statue on the town square with an image of the flag. A moor's head, a legacy of Corsica's time as a territory of Spanish kings. On pre-revolutionary flags, the moor was blindfolded. Legend has it that Paoli ordered the bandana to be lifted onto the forehead so to symbolize the awakening of the Corsican people. We really liked the vibe of Corte. It is really a student city and it brings just a lovely energetic vibe to the city and also it brings nice places like this small bookshop slash coffee place that was recently opened by a young woman and so we went in to get a coffee, carrot cake and a cookie and also to get inspired to find a couple of books. That I can add to my list of books I'd like to read this winter. In a previous video, I mentioned that I'm going to keep a book journal. I still intend to share more about it in an upcoming video. But this was just the perfect place to be inspired. And I actually took home a couple of really nice books. And also these really beautiful little postcards. And it turned out the artist was a Dutch person. I love these for their douceur, so the softness, the gentle vibe that they have. It's, I think, a little bit of softness and gentleness that we can all use right now in our lives. So I was happy to find so many nice little things in this wonderful shop here in Corté. On our last day, we wanted to explore Cap Corse. This is the most northern part of the island, nicknamed the Finger of Corsica, and it's the most untouched wild nature part of the island. We wanted to take this scenic drive starting on the west coast, passing the highly recommended villages Nonza, Centuri, and then continuing to the north and then taking the coast down on the east side to Bastia. It was very stormy but we were enjoying the beauty and the views, while keeping an eye on the time as our ferry was leaving back to the French mainland from Bastia that evening. While we were driving, the road was suddenly blocked in the village of Pino. It turned out that there was a car rally, which there are many of in Corsica, this time it was the Ronde de la Giraglia, and it was taking place that day so we stopped to enjoy it. We decided we wouldn't have enough time to continue the full drive around the gap, so we decided to cut straight through the road and untouched inland nature. The drive was breathtaking. As we were nearly at the other end, driving from the west coast to the east coast, a car coming from the opposite direction stopped us and said there was a huge wildfire and the road was entirely blocked. So we had to turn around and drive all the way back south following the coastline to take another one of the only two roads actually that you can take on the Cap Corse going from west to east or from east to west. As we approached the east coast we saw the smoke and it became clear to us that the fire was pretty serious and we realized that we would never have been able to get to Bastia if we had continued our drive around the cap. 30 hectares of shrubland were burnt that day and it just made us feel like the week had been pretty eventful. So we arrived in Bastia and took some time to explore the city and the Old Harbor. It also turned out that many of the rally cars and their drivers were taking our ferry, so we were able to admire some of the cars. You have to make your phone a little bit closer. I don't know if you can hear me. No, no contact. Thank you. This short week in Corsica was centered around filming the home tour and although the weather conditions made it pretty challenging, we were not able to fly the drone for most parts for example, and we really had to work around what the weather was allowing us to do, we did see enough of Corsica to know that the island holds so many incredible treasures, stories and beauty. And we definitely need to come back to explore and see it in its traditional sunny and picture-perfect weather conditions. Now I'd like to know, did you ever visit Corsica? Did you even know that this beautiful island, Île de Beauté, existed? And what has sparked your interest during our visit? I would love to hear from you. I will be editing the home tour video this winter, so it should be up in the coming months. Meanwhile, I'll thank you so much for watching and I hope to be back with a new video very soon.