"Wild - romantic Corsica" Top 5 Page for this destination Corsica by coccinella169

Corsica is an island, surrounded by the Ligurian, Mediterranean and Tyrrhenian Sea. Although many Corsicans don`t like this fact, it belongs to France. Corsica is like a huge rock in the sea, it´s landscape is wild, it has plenty of picturesque villages and nice beaches with turquoise water. It is in a lovely way old-fashioned. My itinerary in Corsica included a stay in Bastia, a scenic ride on the narrow-gauge railway crossing Corsica to Ajaccio, the capital. I saw the lovely town of Sartène on the West Coast, and headed down to Bonifacio on the Southern tip of Corsica, before travelling the East coast back to Bastia. Of course I didn`t miss some of the idyllic beaches :).

Bonifacio

Go to Corsica if you like unspoilt nature, without that awful huge hotel buildings you find on other coastlines in Europe. Corsica is good for hiking, especially in spring and autumn, for horse riding (as there is a farm practically at every corner) and for simply enjoying life. Food is farmer`s cuisine on on hand and tasty seafood on the other, very tempting. Carnivores will be delighted there in regard of the local "charcuterie". Corsicans like to hunt, especially those numerous wild pigs on the island :).

Tamaricciu plage

The Corsicans I met were so polite and friendly. In small villages I was even greeted on the streets! In case you do not speak any roman language, you might have to use gestures to communicate. I didn`t get any english menu not even once, and even if I addressed to the person in English, the answer was in French. A good possibility for me to dig out my school French in any case :). Corsicans have their own language - Corse. Basically it sounds like a mixture between Italian and French. There is no need to try to speak Corse, Corsicans do not like this - a Corsican told me, that Corse is exclusively used to communicate between them. In case you want to know how Corsican sounds, listen to the lovely celtic inspired folk music of Corsica´s most famous group "I muvrini". Corsicans are proud of their culture, and many want to be indipendent from France and have their own country. Road signs are bilingual, and very often the French name is sprayed out. You can also see bullet holes on many road signs. There is also some nationalist violence - for example in my first night in Bastia, they blew up the entrance of the administration building. Street musicians sing of "libertà" - freedom, and you see a lot of graffiti saying "indipendenza", or that French should go out of the country. Usually nationalists take care that no people are harmed, and in general I had the impression that there is not much crime in Corsica.

• Pros:The landscape, the beaches, the picturesque villages
• Cons:occasional acts of violence, not really a low budget destination
• In a nutshell:Nature lovers paradise!