"The mountains of Corsica" Top 5 Page for this destination Corsica by kokoryko

In France we call it Île de Beauté, Island of beauty, and this name is largely justified, even if for me, it is not the beauty most of visitors to this island enjoy.
My Corsica are the mountains, the small villages nested in the deep valleys, the long hikes in the woods and along the rivers, the summits bathed by the winds, or hidden in the clouds, the awaking of Nature in Spring. . . . I decided to take the young generation (my sons) on a week tour in the Corsica mountains last April (2010), spending time with them, hoping to show them there are other things in life than “playstations”, playing on computers, surfboarding on the Basque Coast, downhill skiing in the Pyrenees or getting burned by the sun on the beaches. . . . They enjoyed, specially noticing that they were easier than me walking up to the passes or crossing the streams, but I insisted to carry the heavy backpack ;)

Monte Cinto

The usual way of discovering the mountains of Corsica is walking the famous GR20 trail, following more or less the North South divide of the island; there was still a lot of snow in the higher parts of the trail, in mid April, so we decided to walk up the Tavignano Valley starting from Corte, the historic capital city of Corsica, and reach the high mountains from the valleys on the East side instead of walking on the Divide, where snow was still thick on the trails.
This gave the opportunity to visit villages and have a glimpse at the local life; Corsica is in France, but it is also “outside” France, not only from geographical point of view, but also from the mentalities of the people, from its past history, really something different, which takes you to a very exotic place in some way.
If you visit Corsica, may I advise you to read novels about Corsica, the classics “Colomba” (P. Mérimée), or “La Vendetta” (H. de Balzac), though from the 19th century? They wonderfully describe the endearing, although coarse mentalities of the mountain people of Corsica. For more “modern” Corsica, besides the excellent, very humoristic and politically un-correct comic strip “L’Enquête corse” by Pétillon, novels or historical books by J. P. Santini or Marie Ferranti give a nice introduction to local mentalities. Then, guides (there are hundreds), among them obviously the GR20 topoguide, and of course, VTpages. . . :) :) :)
Beaches of Corsica are certainly beautiful, but they are only the fringe of this island, the real place is inland!

• In a nutshell:Wonderful place with incredible people!