The only thing I knew about Corsica was from one of my old Asterix books I read as a 10-year-old. Oh yes, and that it was Napoleon Bonaparte’s birthplace, but other than the cartoon adventure of an indomitable Gaul and his friends and a tit-bit of trivia, nothing else.
Strange, I thought, I had been scouring the map for my next summer destination, scanning countless islands in the Mediterranean until my eyes inadvertently settled on this big almond-shaped island right next door to Italy. Strange because, as well travelled as I am, I had never thought about Corsica and strange because not many seem to either.
When it comes to a Mediterranean holiday everybody talks of Greece, the south of France, and the Algarve. Travel brochures splash Croatia, Turkey, Spain and Sardinia everywhere but hardly Corsica. Sardinia, in fact, is right below Corsica; a mere 14km separates these two large islands. Sardinia is a beautiful mountainous island ringed by white beaches and turquoise seas where the super-rich from Milan and Rome spend their summers in a hedonistic display of super-yacht one-upmanship. So Corsica, just by sheer proximity, must be beautiful too.
In fact, just a quick Google of the island and it appears to be so – craggy wild mountains (I remember that part from Asterix in Corsica) bordered by sparkling turquoise water (that too was in the comic book).
So what’s with all the secrecy over Corsica? It was a question that any traveller just loves to answer, and I answered it like any good traveller. I went to Corsica.
Officially Corsica belongs to France but there was not much of a détente between Corsica and Mother France. From my Asterix book I remembered Corsicans were fiercely independent people and these days they are still more than a little cheesed off about having to kow-tow to French masters (in Asterix’s case, the Romans, and now, the French).
This is despite one of France’s personalities being Corsican by birth. That Napoleon gave scant regard to his home island is a mystery. While he redesigned Paris and other major towns in France, Corsica was all but ignored. To the pint-sized emperor, his birthplace was nothing but a wild backwater of warring strange-speaking, bandana-clad tribes.
Yet if Napoleon had been born a few decades earlier he may have been emperor of Italy and not France. Italy’s influence on Corsica is far more poignant than France’s. Genoa and Tuscany have had, in the distant past, an enormous influence on Corsica that still strongly lingers to this day. Apart from a mythical account that Christopher Columbus was born in Corsica too, when the island was under Genoese rule, the most notable influence is the Corsican language.
Corsican resembles an antiquated Italian dialect that most certainly is not French. Every road sign in Corsica today bears two names – a French one and a Corsican one. Even the name “Corsica” sounds Italian, while the mainland French prefer to call the island “Corse”. But that aside, the Corsicans don’t nurture any nostalgia towards Italy either. For the locals, Corsica is for the Corsicans. Even the Genoese and Tuscans, who dominated the island for centuries before the French, were made to feel unwelcome.
Today it’s a little better. Visitors are welcome but to a point. Unlike Sardinia that openly accepts development from mainland Italy, Corsica has, by and large, held the relentless march of mass tourism at bay. Perhaps it’s because the Corsicans, after millennia of successive foreign rule that began with the Romans then included the Vandals, Goths, Moors, Spanish, Genoese, Tuscans and French, are understandably wary of foreign intentions. Non-Corsicans may not settle and developers find it near impossible to buy property to build their big hotels and holiday villas.
Corsican law prohibits locals from selling their land unless approved by every single member of their extended family. If Asterix in Corsica is a fair travel guide to Corsica – and I’m starting to realise that, uncannily, it is – the Corsican family is just like a Sicilian family, close knit and suspicious of others.
In other words, Corsican real estate has remained and will remain in the hands of the family, and is jealously guard even against other Corsican families. If you think the Mafia love a good vendetta, the Corsicans define themselves by it. Neighbouring families have been known to hold vendettas against each other for centuries, so it’s best not to test the goodwill of a Corsican.
I arrived in Corsica by ferry from Sardinia. The short trip across the straits is perhaps the best approach to the island because the view that greets visitors from this maritime angle defies any superlative found in the Oxford dictionary. From a distance, vertical white cliffs more dramatic than those of Dover plunge into a tranquil blue sea. Over millennia, the soft limestone cliffs have been systematically eroded from below and, like an Antarctic glacier, huge white blocks the size of palaces have broken off and tumbled down where they seem to float like colossal icebergs in the sea. As one gets closer, medieval buildings perch precariously on top of a 100m high cliff. These edifices appear as if they are about to collapse into the ocean at any second, but have somehow remained this way for centuries.
Named after the Tuscan King Bonifacio II, this fortress town is, of the best places in the Mediterranean, perhaps the most beautiful of them all. The citadel was built by the Genoese in the 10th century on top of a high rocky premonitory that is surrounded by sea on three sides. The views of and from Bonifacio are simply sublime; the buildings, although precarious, have an ancient charm and a stroll through a maze of tight alleyways gives a sense of Mediterranean timelessness that gets one thinking about The Odyssey or the Crusades and the Knights Templar.
Stepping off the ferry one is confronted by the other face of Bonifacio, more modern, but equally as captivating as the citadel above. The yacht basin is protected from the elements and as result has attracted a veritable ensemble of flashy big super-yachts and smaller but equally chic vessels that dock here for a little upmarket R&R. Lined along the wharf are trendy restaurants, bars, clubs and boutique shops that remain open very late into the warm summer’s night.
Both the old town and the marina below are essentially the only development around the area of south Corsica. Beyond Bonifacio, narrow, often precipitous, roads wind their way through chestnuts and heavily scented maquis (fynbos-like shrubs) and are the only link between Europe’s most concealed gems – Corsica’s beaches.
The narrow roads are best tackled with the smallest vehicle available in Corsica – the Vespa. Riding a Vespa on a Mediterranean island in summer is one of those iconic moments in life. Like skiing in the Alps or scuba diving off the Great Barrier Reef in Australia; the thrill of being submersed in a moment such as this imprints a sense of being that it is impossible to fully describe.
Suffice it to say that whizzing along on the little metal beast, wind in the hair, the smell of the sea, and, in Corsica especially, the sense of solitude, gives one a feeling of real independent travel.
Tours on buses and even hiring one’s own car is touristy and by feeling touristy, travellers feel marginalised, separated from the environment by a glass pane so that the tourist is an observer with a gnawing sense of otherness. On a Vespa in the Med that feeling is replaced by a sense of belonging, of being immersed in the place, becoming a local – in spite of this being xenophobic Corsica.
Feeling like a local also produces a sense of bravado, it gives a swagger to the walk and ends in a skid to a halt at the end of a gravel track, a nonchalant flip of the stand, a flick of the hair as the helmet comes off and a stride on to a set with vivid blue water lapping against a dazzlingly white beach. This is travel at its best, gone are the inadequacies and faint anxieties of being a foreigner. Thanks to the Vespa, Corsica is that much more approachable and accessible.
The coves and bays of Corsica are achingly beautiful and are often sprinkled with a small armada of yachts. Certainly, if I owned a yacht, I would sail her to Corsica and then find it very difficult to leave. In fact, yacht or no yacht, I found it difficult to leave Corsica and, if it weren’t for Corsican law preventing me, I would stay. I understand why the French hold on, and those before them. The beauty of Corsica is captivating.
But one must thank the Corsicans for their immunity to the power of foreigners over the ages and the rampant development of modern times that has swarmed over other European coasts. Kudos to them for fiercely preserving their Corsican identity and kudos to Napoleon for not making a big song and dance about his island and for hiding what has to be the most desirable of all Mediterranean islands. But shhh, you did not hear it from me.
p Contact Adam Cruise Cruise Travel & Tours on 021 782 0101 or email [email protected] - Weekend Argus