The Island of Corsica, France
Name: Corsica (English) / Corse (French) / Corsica (Corsican)
Land area: 8,722 km² / 3,368 sq mi
Population: 330,000
Name of inhabitants: Corsicans
According to the World Atlas, “Corsica is the Mediterranean Sea's fourth-largest island after Cyprus, Sardinia, and Sicily. The island is approximately 183 km (114 miles) long from north to south and about 83 km (52 miles) wide from west to east. Its coastline is about 1,000 km (621 miles), and it covers an estimated 8,722 sq km (3368 sq miles) or under 2% of France's total land area.”
Corsica hadn’t really been on my radar so when the opportunity came up to meet my nephew Ryan and his wife Nicole who were attending a wedding there, I eagerly jumped at the chance. After all, I would get to do some of my favorite things (travel, exploring, hiking, food, wine) with some of my favorite people…I just LOVE THEM!!
While lots of people still to this day think Corsica is part of Italy, probably because of how close it is and maybe because of the culture of the island itself, it is actually a French region. Corsica is only separated from Sardinia, Italy by the 12 km (7.5 miles) wide waterway, the Strait of Bonifacio. The island was controlled by different Italian cities, successively, before finally being sold to France in 1768.
We decided to stay in Bonifacio, a medieval fortress town on the southernmost tip of the island. The town is perched perilously atop an eroding limestone promontory that juts out into the sea, east to west, for around 1.5km (.9 miles). It is a site to behold. Founded in 828 by the Count Bonifacio of Tuscany, it was built as a defense against notorious pirate raids. Bonifacio offers 360-degree views of Corsica’s gorgeous coastline overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Our apartment was on Rue Longue which was the citadel’s main street during Genoese occupancy. Like the town itself, built on a cliffside with endless amounts of stairs, our Airbnb was equally as challenging to access. The 5 staircases of climbing it took to get to the main floor were crazy steep & narrow. You know it’s bad when the advertisement for the Airbnb puts you on notice that you must be able to carry your own bag up all those stairs by yourself. No easy task, that one. The place was absolutely lovely and, dare I say it, worth the climb! Our 2 terraces with views of the red roofed village and hills in the distance was an added bonus.
The earliest evidence of human activity in this area goes back to 6750 BC thanks to a discovery of the skeleton of ‘Dame de Bonifacio’ in a cave near the Capello village. We walked the trail from Col Saint-Roch just above the harbor and below the old town, a lovely cliff walk with fantastic views back to Bonifacio that highlights just how uniquely this town is built atop of and blends in with the gorgeous limestone rocks.
