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| | | | Much in the tourist world has no doubt changed since I last visited Corsica 30 years ago. But the wild extravagance of the rugged scenery must remain timeless.
Diversity came at the beginning of the holiday, for every means of transport was used — the bus, the tube, the train and a plane which seemed to be one of the Wright Brothers' rejects!
Our accommodation, just outside Ajaccio, was in a series of coal sheds politely called bungalows.
It was with some trepidation that we viewed the constant stream of enormous ants which passed the front door. Fortunately, they stayed outside but the same could not be said of a friendly mouse who came every evening to share our chocolate.
The bungalows were close to the beach.
The heat, even in September, was such that there was no difficulty in getting dry after a dip in the sea.
Ajaccio, remarkable for the sombre black dresses of the majority of the ladies, is soaked in the history of Napolean. The curator of the local museum told us all about the house where Napolean was born.
A trip down the west coast through Sartene revealed spectacular scenery.
The weathering of the granite peaks in one spot gave the impression of a lion sprawled across the mountain top.
Bonifacio in the extreme south was made up of tiny cobbled streets. Boat trips across the bay revealed the lighthouse and the extraordinary caves which penetrate the cliffs.
The town is said to be one of the most curious of the Mediterranean ports and second only, for interest, to Valetta.
An excursion into the interior of the island brought us some of the most startling and impressive scenery which it is possible to imagine.
Many of the roads through the gorges of Spelunca past Le Cinto, the highest mountain in Corsica, were little more than precipitous tracks — calculated to bring a chill to the stomach of any indifferent travellers.
This led us to Vizzavona Pass.
Finally we visited Corte, the ancient capital of Corsica, with its fabulous Citadelle perched high on the rocks.
A donkey decided to be friendly and only with great difficulty was he prevented from boarding our bus!
The holiday ended as it began at Ajaccio Airport. We returned to England with an indelible memory of some incredible mountain scenery to which no words can possibly do true justice.
Travel guide: Corsica
Everyone for tennis, then dinner is served
The pinnacle of my tennis career has to be in the late Seventies, when I played a match with Bill Threlfall at the Hurlingham Club which was filmed for TV's Nationwide.
Bill was one of the BBC's Wimbledon commentators and had been giving me lessons on and off for a couple of years. Since then my tennis has lapsed.
It was earlier this year that I saw a chance to brush up on my game.
During a week sailing in the Caribbean I met Ian Campbell and his girlfriend Kay Adams, the television presenter.
They were filming for a Scottish holiday programme and over a rum punch one evening I discovered Ian ran Tuscan Tennis Holidays - tennis coaching weeks in Tuscany, Spain's Costa del Sol and Sardinia.
It was too good an opportunity to miss. I decided to try a first visit to Sardinia.
Our accommodation was on Puntaldia, a flower-filled headland on the northeast coast of the island, where clusters of attractive Spanish-style houses had been built as holiday homes.
Our studio apartments were self-catering, but most nights we ate out as a group, trying out local restaurants and a lot of seafood pasta.
There were 12 of us - a lively, interesting group, and several had been on Ian's tennis weeks before and played regularly.
The first morning on court our tennis was assessed and videoed. It could be replayed in slow motion or stopped so we could see instantly what we were doing wrong.
Ian's comment to me was: 'Val, it's obvious you've had lessons but not a lot of practice.'
There was a giggle from the others. Meeting my tennis group at Alghero airport the day before, I'd zipped my racquet out of its cover to an instant chorus of 'You haven't taken the wrapping off'.
How embarrassing - the handle was still tightly bound in shiny cellophane. Ian was spot on.
Travel guide: Corsica
The old master of the Med
We discovered Corsica in 1973 when, as a young family with three small children, we had a chaotic introduction to the island.
Staying in a beach house over-run by ants, we found our one credit card rejected without explanation in the only local restaurant, leaving us permanently short of ready cash.
Then, having been let down by our car hire company, we were forced to ferry our food several miles a day in the panniers of a borrowed 'motocyclette'.
It might easily have been a horrible holiday, but the reverse was the case.
No matter how difficult things were, each day we fell deeper in love with Corsica, with the scent of the maquis (that blanket of bushes and herbs which covers the lower hills of the island), the pine forests and the empty white beaches.
In fact, we were so convinced that we had discovered Paradise that throughout the Seventies we returned to different parts of the island.
Then, one year we saw something terrible. A whole valley had been burned by a forest fire the day before we got there - started by tourists, it was said - and it seemed to us, in that cindered desolation, that Corsica's innocence had been lost.
After that we stayed away for more than 20 years, afraid to see any further desecration - until this summer when, desperate for some sun, we booked the only Corsican villa and flight we could find.
We made our way to the west coast where we'd started out all those years ago. It was all just as lovely as we'd remembered.
Obviously, there had been some building in the past 30 years, but not as much as expected.
Travel guide: Corsica
I lost my heart to a blind date
From the Mail on Sunday
Booking a self-catering holiday, like getting married again, is often a triumph of hope over experience.
But with a second marriage, unless you are marrying a mail-order bride from Ulan Bator, at least you get the chance of a good look at your prospective partner.
With self-catering, it's a blind date. Holiday brochures are not allowed to tell you lies, but painful experience has taught us that they can be extremely economical with the truth.
And brochure photographs provide living evidence that the camera not only lies but lies through its teeth.
So we took the brochure claim that our self-catering property in Corsica would offer 'luxury' with a pinch of salt.
All we asked was a cooker that worked and a swimming pool that contained neither live frogs nor dead rodents (we've encountered both in our time).
When we rounded the corner of the road at the bottom of the Marine de Davia and got our first glimpse of the Villa Delphine we could scarcely believe our eyes.
From the outside, the house looked less like a holiday home and more like the sort of hi-tech seaside lair where Blofeld would be plotting the downfall of 007.
The upstairs had the retro style of a Thirties liner with a curved stern deck rail fronting an enormous wooden sun-deck. Downstairs had something of a Guggenheim art gallery surrounding it.
Inside, things were even more sensational: mod cons included allover air-conditioning, satellite TV, a plunge pool with water-jet swim system, a hi-fi - even an ice-making machine.
The front room had a massive picture window which looked over the curved swimming pool towards the Mediterranean, which was washing up at the bottom of the garden.
Not a dead mouse to be seen.
Travel guide: Corsica
Hire your own Hugo
From the Daily Mail
To have one's identity defined by smell is rarely a bonus. Think of Venice on a hot summer's day, or London on a cold one. Think of grid-locked Los Angeles or sweat-stained Calcutta - all have odours that manipulate the senses and colour the judgement.
The Mediterranean island of Corsica, however, has a smell that is as famous for being good as the above are for being bad. Infrequently, in fact, do you read or hear about Corsica without reference to the maquis, a loosely collective term for the aromatic herbs and plants that flourish in profusion over broad sweeps of the island's mountainous landscape.
So sweet and evocative is the scent of the maquis that expatriated Corsicans have been known to weep with nostalgia at a whiff of their homeland.
But we wept with frustration. Our flight from the UK had been badly delayed and we arrived in Figari, Corsica's southern airport, some time after nightfall.
Intent on driving four tired children the 36 miles to our base, I was in no frame of mind for sentimental claptrap about flowers.
But there it was, wafting through the car windows, a sweet dusky smell of heathery rosiness tinged with the scent of the sea and the warmth of the night air. The perfect tonic at the end of a long day to the rigours of travelling en famille.
Our base, if it can be so crudely termed, was a large, converted wine tower, chunkier than Rapunzel would have had it, but completely circular nonetheless, with commanding views across the shimmering blue of the Gulf of Valinco to the small town of Propriano on the far side of the bay.
There were eight bedrooms in all, divided among the tower's four floors, and three kitchens: one on the top (a good getaway but slightly impractical); a second on the middle (car-level, so handy for the shopping); the third at the bottom (semi-alfresco, near the pool and complete with barbecue, ice machine and shady terrace. We liked this one best).
It was the ideal set up for two families. Our gang - two adults and four children - took the top two floors; our friends - two adults and three children - took the bottom. Which left us one room spare: we filled it with Hugo.
Travel guide: Corsica
Where the sun rose and set on Napoleon's empire
From the Mail on Sunday
The island bells sounded across the sea as we came to Calvi - it was Sunday on Corsica. By the time the barquentine was at anchor, the population had been to church and come out again and from the land came an unmistakable smell. Lunch.
From the steep town it wafted across the green water, the scent of oil, garlic, meat, fish and vegetables, the best smell in the world on a summer's day. As we made for the shore in the tender you could see the white cloths on the harbourside tables, the glint of sun on upturned glasses and a girl polishing spoons. You could almost hear the cork coming from a bottle.
We had sailed from Cannes late on the previous evening and now there we were hove-to with the cheese-coloured town almost folded into the hills, handkerchiefs of midsummer snow lying against the mountains only two kilometres inland where the road begins its rolling way through the island down to Ajaccio, where Napoleon was born.
He was an island man, despite his continental visions, for he became an exile on Elba, across the Tyrrhenian Sea, and eventually died in the faraway Atlantic on St Helena. In his day Calvi was a remote two-day journey from Ajaccio, a fishing place of a few houses, inserted into the limestone of the hills.
Some of the town is still wedged there; you see the front of a house which is revealed as the facade of cave. The coolest bar on the quay is half-cavern. The cobbled street rises until it peters out on the hillside, at a place I imagine where the people decided enough was enough, it was too difficult to build any further.
Up above there are a few houses which have never really been finished, their windows as hollow as their rooms, a refuge for swallows. Strolling along the quay on that Sunday morning was a delight.
From daybreak the place is busy with boats but all activity seemed to have ceased in the cause of lunch, or at least an aperitif. Tourist shops hung on to every steep and stony street and there were stalls full of shining vegetables for replenishing the small boats which had come in overnight.
Travel guide: Corsica
Corsica is Absolutely Fabulous!
From the Mail on Sunday
Corsica is best known as the birthplace of Napoleon. It seemed fitting then, that my partner Nick and I should visit the Ile de Beaute with our own power-hungry small people in the form of Dylan, three, and 18-month-old Molly. My Mum and Dad came, too, in the guises of nanny and driver respectively.
Having flown to Bastia airport and crammed everything into a Renault Kangoo - not unlike the Pope-mobile and seemingly popular with most car hire firms on the island - we headed for Barcaggio, a tiny hillside hamlet in the north-west of Corsica, just below the Cap Corse.
Veering away from the dull outskirts of Bastia (really the only time that my Dad forgot which side of the road to drive on), we started to climb the Col de Teghime. Welcome to Corsica. We found ourselves suddenly driving on the kind of roads that were made famous by car chases in Sixties crime caper movies. Indeed, I think my Mum would only really have found them thrilling from the safety of an Odeon seat.
We rounded countless hairpin bends and climbed hundreds of feet, heading towards what the guidebooks call 'wonderful panoramic views from St-Florent to the lagoon' but what others might describe as terrifying sheer drops.
The generous Corsicans have also done away with barriers and warning signs so you can see the views even better. Rather curiously, they have also decided to put a rubbish dump next to this road (route D81) a full 2,500ft up in the clouds.
My Mum's anxiety was further increased by the thick smoke belching up from the other side of the peak, which we immediately assumed was our villa going up in flames.
Apparently such fires are common during the summer months, and no one really knows whether careless tourists or cattle-herding firestarters - burning off the scrub to encourage the growth of lush new green shoots - are to blame.
Travel guide: Corsica
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| | | | Found our weaknesses
Ian has taught all over the world and is head coach at the Western Tennis Club in Glasgow. For many years he worked in Pisa in Italy and started Tuscan Tennis Holidays as a way of going to see Italian friends.
Four years ago he was joined by Laura Middleton, like Ian a Scottish Internationalist and a qualified LTA coach.
Laura managed to combine being an excellent teacher with a great deal of fun. We all soon found our weaknesses.
Mine was my backhand and I began to take Laura's advice to 'think more about the end of your shots'.
We played every morning between 10 and midday. It was tempting after two hours dashing energetically about to do very little for the rest of the day.
A bit of lunch, a drink by the harbour and it was all too easy to relax on the terrace of my apartment, with its lovely view down the coast.
But I did venture further afield a couple of times. Sardinia is large - 200 miles long and 100 miles across, so a car was essential.
The island has a turbulent and interesting history, still reflected in the unusual village festivals, stunning Romanesque churches and in the remains of the Nuraghic culture, which existed for 2,000 years BC.
A group excursion was organised to the next headland - the Capo Coda Cavallo (the horse's tail) - where we hired three outboard motors and had a terrific afternoon roaring around the huge, rocky wedge of Tavolara island and landed on deserted beaches to swim.
We were surrounded by glorious views of mountains and ended the day back on Coda Cavallo sipping drinks on the Piazza Panoramique, which overlooked it all.
Napolean's birthplace
And as soon as we got away from the towns, nothing seemed to have changed at all. Because although 1.5 million tourists (mainly French and Italian) visit Corsica every year (the permanent population is only 250,000), their presence is scarcely noticed, being spread around 650 miles of coastline.
I've been intrigued by Corsica ever since I was at school. Not least, I think, because of Napoleon, its most famous son, and the historical lottery of his having been born there just a year after the Genoese finally ceded the island to France in 1768.
Imagine how different the history of Europe might have been if Genoa had hung on to its troublesome colony for a few more years.
But whether or not you're interested in Napoleon - and you can visit his birthplace in Ajaccio - you can't move around Corsica without being aware of its history or, indeed, its politically fraught presence.
In all the towns, for instance, walls are daubed with Corsican nationalist slogans, while most country signposts are colandered by shotgun blasts. The reasons for this permanent native truculence (which, I must add, rarely seems to trouble tourists) are all to do with size and geography.
Too small and under-populated to stand alone as a nation state, Corsica has been occupied over the past 2,500 years by the Greeks, the Romans, the Moors, the Spanish, the Genoese and, finally, the French, while never losing its own island identity.
The mountains made that possible. With peaks up to nearly 9,000ft, it's really a 5,000 sq mile verdant mountain range surrounded by sea. When faced with a new invasion, the Corsicans would simply retreat to the mountains to fight a guerrilla war against their latest oppressors.
In fact, it was in their mountain redoubts that the Corsican sense of vendetta grew, as clan squabbled with clan over land or women, and everyone hated the invader.
Even today, after more than 200 years of being part of France and with French as the official language, many Corsicans still speak Corsican (which sounds like an Italian dialect) to each other.
Retreated into obscurity
The owner was on hand to reveal each new delight with a mixture of proprietorial pride and terrible angst.
The last guests, he explained, were the family of a newly-minted computer millionaire who had broken expensive bedside lights and let the children toss pot plants into the plunge pool, wreaking havoc with the delicate filtration system.
He eyed my Deep Purple In Rock CD which was playing on the hi-fi when he arrived with obvious anxiety. An ageing rocker with a duff taste in Seventies music was all he needed.
In the circumstances, you couldn't blame him for finding reasons to return on a twice-daily basis, presumably to make sure that I hadn't tossed the widescreen TV into the pool.
The main problem for us was that the house was so wonderful, it was tough to drag ourselves away from it, even for a few hours.
Fortunately, we had discovered the delights of Corsica on our very first morning. A dawn arrival at Calvi airport meant we had several hours to kill before we could take possession of the Villa Delphine.
On a July morning that was already roasting by 9am, we parked our rental car (a wonderful Renault Kangoo - which looks like the result of an illicit liaison between a Renault Clio and an icecream van) and strolled around Calvi.
When St Tropez was beginning to establish itself as the Continental centre of the Swinging Sixties, Calvi was probably its nearest challenger.
Like its Riviera rival, it boasted a chic port where the rich and famous could tie up their yachts, around the port were more pavement cafes than you could shake a baguette sandwich at and above the harbour was one of the loveliest old towns anywhere in the Med.
But while St Tropez found fame and fortune, Calvi gradually retreated back into obscurity. As you stand up on the walls of the old citadel - it was while attacking this mighty fortress that Admiral Nelson lost his eye - you gaze over one of the sweetest stretches of coastline you'll find anywhere in Europe.
Chef, babysitter and friend
There comes a point, with 11 mouths to feed (seven under the age of nine), when tired parents realise a self-catering holiday may not provide quite the rest they had bargained for.
We needed help - not a nanny, we decided, but a cook. Sadly, unlike Spain, Italy or southern France, where most big villas always come with the option of a cook, in Corsica they are thin on the ground.
So we turned to Leith's Agency in London, which found Hugo, a French-speaking graduate who had just completed a year's diploma at the cookery school.
Sure, it was an indulgence to fly him out with us from the UK, but during the course of the week, he became our shopper, chef, babysitter and, ultimately, friend. We, meanwhile, had a holiday.
Our days fell into a fixed pattern of mornings by the lovely swimming pool - the older children disappearing occasionally to play table tennis or boules in the shade; the younger ones gathering scraps from the kitchen to feed to the pet tortoises in the garden.
When lunch loomed, our expeditions began, each day a new one taking us along the northern or southern corniches of the Gulf of Valinco in search of a good restaurant and a beach.
There were countless little bays to choose from and several longer stretches of wide sand lapped by the kind of cool, clear, delicious sea that you dream about all winter.
But with the season not quite in full swing, many restaurants and beach bars had yet to open.
Ideal bandit country
It was worth sniffing your way along the harbour before deciding on lunch. It all seemed so slow and somnolent that the sight of half a dozen dark blue-clad policemen toting submachine guns and stony expressions brought you up short.
They were at the junction of a climbing street and the quay, ranged around two police wagons. Between them was an armoured car. They had shut off all three ways but the locals did not appear to notice them. I asked a man drinking a glass of wine at a single table, not attached as far as I could see to any cafes, what was happening.
It was some moments before he understood and seemed to notice the show of armed force for the first time. 'Ah, monsieur,' he said. 'They are moving money from the bank.' 'And they need eight policemen with guns to do that?' He puffed out his cheeks and spread his arms and his smile.
'Monsieur,' he said. 'This is Corsica. It is a dangerous place.' It did not look very dangerous down there. Up in the secret clefts of the mountains it may well have been. I only explored a short distance of the road but it seemed ideal bandit country.
There are rocks and rivers below the whitefaces of the tallest peaks. There is supposed to be a railway through the valleys reaching south to Ajaccio but no one seemed to know when the trains ran, or indeed if they ran.
I suppose I could have asked at the station but, despite helpful gesticulating on the part of several inhabitants, I could not find the station either. It was too warm a lunchtime to look far.
Corsica was one of those confused islands where the inhabitants awoke one morning to find that they had changed nationality overnight, a not uncommon event in the 18th and 19th Centuries. We and the Germans swapped our island of Heligoland for their Zanzibar; the French inhabitants of St Barthelemy in the Caribbean were justifiably miffed when they were traded to Sweden in return for some warehouses at Goteborg. And the United States paid a knockdown price to Denmark for what are now the American Virgin Islands.
In Corsica the people were Italian, or more accurately, Genoese, one day and French the next. In the church of San Ghjuvanni Battista at Calvi the memorials to the old families display their Italian names, including the Colombos.
The locals still insist that Christopher Columbus was born there and, despite the fact that they are way down the list of claimants, have erected a statue of him. He stands with an expression on his carved face which might easily be saying: 'This is my hometown.'
Fantastic sunsets
Our relief at finding the lovely Maison Fillippi intact was a fitting reward for surviving the sometimes hairy journey getting there. A greater reward still, having made the hill climb, were the fantastic views the house affords.
With the Col de Teghime and Serra di Pigno towering behind, you gaze out over green forested valleys and jutting vineyard-dotted hills towards the clean, clear blue of the Mediterranean beyond.
From the villa's palm-shaded terrace we saw a spectacular sunset every evening, cooled by the constant mountain breezes that sometimes stir themselves up into what can feel like gale force winds.
Maison Fillippi also boasts a remarkably sheltered swimming pool whose sun-loungers provide a sun trap that grilled my Mum to a turn. So, once ensconced in the house, the temptation is not to leave at all.
There are apple, pear, fig and walnut trees in the garden, an out-door ping-pong table and, joy of joys, a washing machine. (Washing and pegging out are a Northern obsession and Mum and I took full advantage of the fantastic drying days.)
A five-minute walk up the hill we discovered a little grocery which sold fresh bread, croissants and everything we needed to knock up a salade Nicoise, right down to the anchovies and capers. But there was no fresh milk. Corsicans don't seem to go in for it and the kids weaned themselves, reluctantly, on to Long Life.
Occasionally we did venture out. Driving down the hill from Barcaggio, you constantly feel like the back marker in a 24-hour car rally that runs every day of the year.
The Corsicans' answer to the lively roads seems to be to spend as little time as possible on them, and they therefore drive as fast as they can.
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| | | | Incredible beaches
Another afternoon I headed south with Gary, Jan and Steve. The countryside is wild, mountainous and spectacular, and the coastline mostly undeveloped with incredible beaches and, in some parts, dramatic cliffs.
After two hours we turned inland and under the magnificent Sopramonte range stopped at the old and delightful Hotel Su Gologone for a late lunch.
A starter of wild boar pasta was followed by Sardinia's most famous dish, suckling pig roasted on a spit over an open fire, eaten with carasau bread (like an Indian poppadum) sprinkled with olive oil.
For pudding? Sebadas - fritters stuffed with ricotta cheese and lemon peel and soaked in bitter Sardinian honey. It was deliciously filling and helped down splendidly by a fruity local red wine served in a jug.
From Cala Gonone, a seaside resort a few miles further on, we wound over a narrow mountain road to Cala Cartoe. Like many Sardinian beaches, it was remote and unspoilt.
The beaches don't have a reputation for being the best in the Mediterranean for nothing. The sea was an exquisite blue - but the sand, whipped up by the wind, stung our bodies.
By the end of the week my tennis had definitely improved. We were all heading home with more confidence and assessment sheets on our week's progress.
At the beginning of the course Ian told us that studies have shown it takes 10,000 hits to make any change in one's game automatic. I'd better fix up some matches pretty quickly.
TRAVEL DETAILS:
Tuscan Tennis Holidays offers packages to Sardinia. Coaching costs £145 for 10 hours a week. http://www.tuscanytennis.com Tel: 0141 576 7205
Ryanair offers flights from London Stansted to Alghero http://www.ryanair.com tel: 08701 246 0000
Best beaches in Europe
But what is it about Corsica that made us fall in love with it?
To us it has always been the island's mystery, its mountains. Apart from having some of the best beaches in Europe, there's something very romantic about the misty forested hinterland with its huge peaks and gorges.
One morning, we drove from Propriano to Solenzara on the east coast - and it was one of the most beautiful 50-mile stretches of scenery I've seen.
On the way, we passed through three pretty villages (Sainte Lucie de Tallano, Levie and Zonza), then nothing but the dazzling green of the pine forests as they stretched up to the mountain peaks, the Bavella Needles, which rise into the sky like fingertips.
The interior of Corsica is a rambler's Eden. Years ago we ran into a whole family of wild pigs there (the island also boasts wild boar), and it's also where you can see falcons and golden eagles patrolling the skies.
It seems so alpine in places it's difficult to remember that you're surrounded by the Mediterranean.
Of course, most people go to Corsica for the beaches, and there are hundreds of them, though many of the smaller ones are reachable only by hired boat or a difficult scramble through the maquis.
We love the sun and sea, too, and being based this year in Propriano at the head of the Bay of Valinco in the South West, we were spoiled for choice.
On the north of the bay several campsites are hidden among the trees, so if you use a caravan you can live practically on the beach.
But for those of us who prefer a villa, the best beaches were at Campomoro, a pretty crescent of cream sand.
Outrageously pretty
There was not a tower block hotel anywhere in sight. Very impressive. The package-holiday revolution seems to have hardly touched the face of Corsica.
As we drove along the coast towards L'Ile-Rousse - past the sprawling Foreign Legion base - it all reminded me of when I first visited the Cote d'Azur in the Sixties.
We retraced our steps to Calvi a few times during the week - once we travelled on the Thomas the Tank Engine train that rattles its way between L'Ile-Rousse and Calvi every hour.
But L'Ile-Rousse was our main town. It doesn't have the smart sophistication of Calvi, but it's a friendly, small seaside town with plenty of good restaurants and a nice, tree-lined square where you can sit with a glass of wine and enjoy the velvety, warm Mediterranean evening.
We were lured inland up into the hills by road signs which pointed to the 'route des artisans': we're suckers for craftsmen's shops anywhere in the world.
We weren't expecting villages as outrageously pretty as Pigna, where the old, pale-stone houses have been handsomely restored, many doing business not only as craft shops but also bed and breakfast places and restaurants.
The shops were good, too. One specialises in music boxes that play traditional Corsican tunes, another makes Corsican guitars and harpsichords. We could have lingered here for many happy hours.
But the siren call of the Villa Delphine lured us back.
It would be hard to imagine anything more wonderful than sitting out on our exquisite sun terrace with a good book, a glass of something nice and inexpensive from the local Super-U supermarket and the sound of the Mediterranean lapping on the shore.
This is what holidays are all about.
The problem we have now is not only how do we improve on the Villa Delphine - almost impossible - but also how do we find another holiday destination that can match Corsica.
Nelson lost his eye - I may have lost my heart here.
TRAVEL DETAILS:
Corsican Places http://www.corsica.co.uk, tel: 01903 748180
Two chilled bottles of Corsican rose
The small fishing village of Campo Moro was by far our favourite, its beach perfect for small children, its pier just the right height for jumping off, and its simple, terraced restaurant serving a fine line in steak frites.
Tizzano was another, best known for its location on the edge of a picturesque creek and Chez Antoine - a simple, waterside restaurant, where lobsters and steaks sizzle on an open, wood-fired grill.
But our best day by far took us inland, to the real Corsica - not the Corsica of pizzerias, creperies, jet skis and boat trips, but the Corsica of craggy mountain roads, of hidden villages with water fountains and dusty squares shaded by trees.
We passed through Sainte Lucie de Tallano, one of the island's prettiest villages, on our way to Zoza, where we had been promised a river, crossed by a classic Genoese stone bridge, with cool rock pools and plenty of shade.
Leaving the cars on a sunbaked roadside, we walked down a steep, tree-lined track, weighed down with the makings of a fine picnic.
And there it was - the Rizzanese river, its gentle-flowing stream intercepted by flat, granite rocks forming deep pools and shallow ones. The older children could swim and jump; the younger ones could paddle and wallow.
And at the river's edge, we laid out our banquet of dried hams and salamis, French bread and cheeses, chicken still warm from the oven, succulent peaches, melon and figs, and most important of all, two chilled bottles of Corsican rose.
Believe me, days - even holiday ones - don't come much better than this.
Travel facts The Piazza Rondais available through Corsican Places on 01903 748180, or http://www.corsica.co.uk. For Leith's Agency, tel: 0207 229 0177.
Napoleon's birthplace
Napoleon's beautiful mother Letizia Ramolino was 14 when she was married in the cathedral at Ajaccio to Carlo Bonaparte, a lawyer. He was famous for suing without fear or favour. He sued his father-in-law for an unpaid portion of Letizia's dowry. He sued his relatives for throwing slops into the street from their windows.
The house where Napoleon was born is still there, somewhat anonymous in a shadowed side-street, a repository of 18th Century furniture, some of which may have belonged to the Bonaparte family. The cathedral where his parents married in 1764 is beautiful in a quiet way and the market place, where Carlo promptly auctioned the chattels he eventually won as a dowry, is still at the town's heart.
The bronze bell of the cathedral tolls, disturbing the swallows, as it did on the day Bonaparte was baptised, unusually in these times with only one Christian name, the name that was to cause a stir and a fear throughout Europe - Napoleon.
We sailed on a purple evening, the Ligurian Sea lolling against the ship's side, the tan land fading into the warm sky. There was enough breeze to fill the sails and by daybreak we had reached the south of Corsica and the amazing port of Bonifacio.
It has been described a thousand times since Homer noted, rather soberly on the evidence visible today: 'An excellent harbour, closed in on all sides by an unbroken ring of precipitous cliff.' No one would argue with Homer but there is in fact, and has to be, one side open to the sea. Entering this cleft is an experience that stopped conversation on deck. It is as if a slice had been cut from a cake with the port at the inside end, surely the most sheltered and secure in the world.
We sailed between the cliff, white walls on either side, the best part of a mile, until we came to a jetty in the almost secret haven.
It was not difficult to see why it has kept out storms and raiders for centuries. The town stretched along both sides, quays and boats and the aromatic premises of ships' chandlers and fruit shops among the chairs and cloths of the cafes, with a separate older town high on the plateau above. You can go up there by a little railway, otherwise it's a long, steep walk.
From below, at the water's edge, you can see the roofs peering over at you. It is a unique place, old and quiet; a city on a shelf.
The very word 'exile' seems to mean a long time, but Napoleon's exile on Elba was only for nine months. He arrived, banished by everybody, former enemies and friends, in a British ship on May 4, 1814. During the five-day voyage, chaffing at the inactivity, he designed a new flag for Elba, three yellow honey bees.
Corsica for wine buffs
Just two miles from Barcaggio is the small town of Patrimonio. Small it may be, but Nick - a true wine bore --informed me that Patrimonio is the 'capital' of the first Corsican wine-making region to be awarded French appellation controlee status back in 1968, so some of the best wine is really good.
You've plenty to choose from: there are more than 30 domaines along the 'route des vins' that takes you through Patrimonio and beyond towards the lovely port of St-Florent. But while there's plenty of choice, there's not a huge variety. The whites are all made from the Vermentino grape, and the best are dry, aromatic and yummy.
There are sticky, sweet fortified muscats from the Cap Corse and Chianti-like reds, made from Corsica's own Nielluccio grape. But our favourites were the roses - perfect sunshine drinking.
We tried various different caves along the route; from the white-walled, air-conditioned and modern art-filled Orenga de Gaffory, to the roadside garage of Devichi where we were served with laconic gloom by a man who didn't seem to know that his flies were undone.
Appearances don't deceive. The Orenga de Gaffory wines were all excellent and a couple came home with us. Those from Devichi got left behind --one can but wonder why his flies were open. . .
Wine is about all that Patrimonio itself has to offer. St Martin's church is picturesque from the outside and offers more fantastic views, but the interior apparently isn't up to much - it was locked when we went.
Close by, there's a lovely looking terraced restaurant, Le Jardin du Menhir, named after the 6ft-high megalithic statue-menhir known as U Nativu, which was ploughed up by a farmer in 1964 and which is displayed nearby.
According to the notes left by the previous occupants of the villa, the restaurant serves beau-tifully cooked and charmingly served Corsican specialities. But by the time we rolled up there in the first full week of September, it had closed for the season.
Be warned, Corsica's season seems to stop pretty abruptly at the end of August and restaurants, supermarkets and the like retreat into their shells somewhat. One big advantage of missing out on the high season, of course, is the empty beaches. Corsica is famed for its sandy expanses and we tried a few.
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| | | | Therapeutic thermal baths
There's also the 2km-long Plage de Portigliolo, where discreet nude sunbathers merge into the sand at the far end.
And if you don't like peeping, sunbathing, snorkelling or swimming, you can always try horse-riding or paragliding.
Considering it's in such a beautiful place, Propriano isn't a distinguished town, but it's nice enough, with its row of portside restaurants.
And it's only when the towering, multi-storey car ferries come in from Marseilles and Toulon three or four times a week that you realise just how small a place it is.
There's also little recent history here, unlike the ancient Calvi and Ajaccio with their huge Genoese citadels, but there is a remarkable megalithic site at nearby Filitosa.
The inland centre of Sartene is said to be typically Corsican, but to me it's always seemed grey. Try Bonifacio in the south instead. There you can have fantastic, if choppy, boat trips under the shadow of limestone cliffs.
I could go on forever telling you how wonderful Corsica is, describing the marinas at Porto-Vecchio, or extolling the therapeutic virtues of the thermal baths at Baraci.
Discovered by the Romans, loved by the rich of France's 19th century Second Empire, they were closed down and neglected when we first came here.
But you really need to experience Corsica yourself to appreciate how beautiful it is. You'll need a hire car and the roads are often bad - but that's part of the charm.
To me, going back was a return to Paradise, and who cares if it rains here more than on other Mediterranean islands? We'll be back.
TRAVEL DETAILS:
Villa Packages: Simply Travel www.simply-travel.com tel: 020 8541 2223; Corsican Places, www.corsica.co.uk or tel: 01903 748180; VFB Holidays from www.vfbholidays.co.uk (tel: 01242 240 340).
Air France fly to Corsica via Paris www.airfrance.com/uk tel: 0845 0845 111.
Direct charter flights from the UK until the end of October (Sundays only). For other deals, try Holiday Options, www.holidayoptions.co.uk tel: 0870 0130450.
For more information log on to www.corsica.net.
Corsicans keep wine to themselves
The bees were meant to represent the hard working inhabitants, rather erroneously as it happened. Today it still flies over the Italian island. When we went ashore it was flying in the breezy sunshine over Portoferraio, a place of stone walls, clocks and gateways, squares and steps and shaded alleys, with motor scooters whizzing everywhere, even on occasions down the steps.
'Our flag,' said the waiter in the square, 'is all that Napoleon left us. He began many things but he did not stay long enough to finish them.' The exiled Frenchman had filled his days with plans; he rebuilt two houses as his residences, one in the town and a country house hardly more than a walk away. He designed bridges and roads and organised the slow-moving farmers and vine growers. He even carried out a small conquest, depositing some puzzled inhabitants on a neighbouring island, Pianosa, and claiming it for Elba.
But he was lonely there too. He was never to see his Empress Marie-Louise again and Josephine was a romantic shadow in the past, although he did, according to the story, receive a beautiful lady guest, a Polish noble woman who came ashore at night in a small boat, met Bonaparte in a mountain rendezvous and vanished just as she had come.
You can go to the place today high on Mount Giove, isolated and wild, the only retreat that gave him pleasure. In the village of Sant Ilario are descendants of families who were living there in Napoleon's day.
There is a stream that issues on to the curling road and people line up for yards to fill jerry cans with the bubbling water. It is served, bottled, in the hotels and restaurants along with the pale and excellent Elba wine.
'Our wine is never exported,' I was told. 'We drink every drop.' Napoleon was only an island man by accident, by misfortune. He was born on an island, was confined to another, and died on another. But his dreams and ambitions, his memories in later times, were continental. You can stand now, where he must have stood often, perhaps in that famously pensive pose, by the window of his house in Portoferraio looking out to the misty Italian mainland.
Life's a beach
At St-Florent you'll find the Plage de la Roya. Busy and, apparently, a bit whiffy in August, it was almost deserted and completely odourless the day we visited (which happened to be the monthly market day) and the calm, shallow, clear blue waters were perfect for the kids to splash about in.
The beach is next to the marina, from where you can take the Popeye boat to the wonderful Plage de Loto. This beach is situated due west of St-Florent, cut off from civilisation by the barren Desert des Agriates - a rocky moonscape of uninhabited land --and accessible only via a serious four-hour hike on foot or a refreshing half-hour cruise on the Popeye, which blasts out salsa music from its tinny speakers all the way.
The beach is a thin strip of pure white sand in its own little bay, the waters placid, warm and clear --more Caribbean than Mediterranean.
Again, though apparently overcrowded in August, it was just pleasantly busy when we were there; and my Mum was lucky enough to witness an act of (permissible) nudism in the shape of a well-built, good-looking chap in his 40s who was taking great care not to overcook the 'meat and two veg'.
There's very little shelter at Loto, so we were chancing it a bit when we spurned the noon return boat and plumped for the two o'clock. But the kids fared well, and any potential boredom was alleviated by the sight of a cow sauntering contentedly up and down the beach eating sea holly.
If you don't have little ones in tow, you can walk 45 minutes round the headland to Saleccia, another splash of white sand and crystal blue sea sheltered by dunes.
Also tried and tested was the beach at Farinole, just a few miles north up the coast from St-Florent. A little more rugged than the other beaches, the sea tended to be livelier and the beach sometimes clogged with seaweed.
One day - a Saturday and still not overcrowded - there was surfing, stunt-kiting and all manner of extreme behaviour going on as the wind blew in straight off the sea. Just a couple of days later, we turned up on a sunny but blowy day to discover the beach almost empty; our joy was extinguished by the wind, which was blowing straight down the beach and into the kids' faces.
We gave up in favour of an early lunch and by the time we'd finished it had calmed right down. This quick-changing weather seemed typical of the area, and you need to be a little patient and adaptable.
Any conditions can be extremely local, and Alison, our rep from Corsican Places, gave us some sound advice: 'If it rains in Barcaggio, go out on to the terrace and scan the view. You can see where it's not raining - get in the car and go there . ..'
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| | | | Napoleon's lonely view
It is not difficult to get the feel of the man there. His house tops the town like a lookout and the furniture, including the Bonaparte bed, lends some feeling of the time he spent there. But it is not until you stand at one of the upper windows that, in a moment, you get the essence of what his exile must have been like.
The seaward windows of the upper rooms look out on to a poetic garden, cypress trees, shrubs in flower, cool arbours and white statues, one of Marianne, the symbol of France, although she has lost her flag. To the right, just beyond Napoleon's garden wall is a lighthouse, and out to sea is a wedge of islet known as Pauline's Rock, after Napoleon's sister who spent time with him there.
Beyond the terrace the sea, almost solid blue, rolls and moves and stretches to the mainland horizon. He must have taken in that view for the last time on February 26, 1815, on the morning he escaped from Elba, taking advantage of the fact that his guardian, Neil Campbell, the British Commissioner, had gone to Naples to have his ears tested.
He sailed out in the hope of conquest - landing in France, and facing serial failure throughout the famously farcical 136 days. You can almost see Napoleon's house in Portoferraio from his country retreat. From the roof of the villa San Martino you have a view down a cleft valley right on to the tiles of the town.
It is rather a ghostly house, with chairs upon which he may have sat and stained mirrors into which he may have looked. The bed is small, shaped like a sleigh, and this may have been the 'camp cot' upon which, his diary notes, he slept when he first arrived in Elba. There are stone eagles and the carved letter 'N' on the gates.
In the Misercordia Church in Portoferraio there is a brass death mask of the emperor, brought from St Helena together with a copy of his coffin, and there are other relics, statues and busts distributed about the island.
Of course few but the tourists give him a second thought today; they are too busy enjoying the last summer of the 20th Century.
But if you go to the western coast of Elba there is an outlook over the uninterrupted Mediterranean. There is a resting place that even now is called Sedia di Napoleone - Napoleon's Seat - and it was there that he sat solitary and thoughtful, thinking over his life and looking out towards his birthplace. Corsica.
Eating out
Farinole beach, known as L'Ambada, is blessed with a bar-restaurant serving admirable and inexpensive pizzas - perfect for breaking up a day on the beach with the kids. Having the children with us meant this was practically the only eating out we were able to do.
This is not because the Corsicans are averse to having children in restaurants. Far from it. But going out for evening meals would mean unwilling entry into the harrowing night section of the Rally Corsica, and they're not big on cats' eyes or lights.
We did manage one excellent lunch at St-Florent's swankiest restaurant, L'Atrium, where the kids were welcomed and entertained beautifully and my sunburned mother drew unkind laughter for ordering grilled lobster. The crayfish is a speciality in St-Florent - it was excellent and pricey. A dinner at L'Atrium would be lovely, but lunch is probably a bit heavy for most stomachs and pockets.
By the end of the fortnight, Maison Fillippi became a very difficult place to leave, and not just because of my Mum's terror at the prospect of the return journey to the airport.
Barcaggio is a completely unspoiled and undeveloped spot, and its wonderful mountain setting is truly peaceful with little but the sound of the wind in the trees and the rattle of distant woodpeckers.
My Mum, who had threatened to book herself a taxi back to the airport and just lie flat on the back seat with her eyes closed, proclaimed this route at least 75 per cent less harrowing than coming over the Col de Teghime - the roads are better and the views more interesting as you climb past the villages of Oletta and Olmeta-di-Tuda before descending from the Col de San Stefano.
With four hours to kill between vacating the villa and checking in at the airport, we headed for La Marana, a sandy stretch sandwiched between the sea and the lagoon at Biguglia.
Here we lunched at Les Boucaniers, a civilised bar- restaurant on a nice sandy beach complete with pine-shaded kids' playground. Perfect, and only 15 minutes from the airport.
Inevitably, as we boarded the plane and strapped a now hysterical Molly to ourselves, we had the feeling that there was a whole lot more of Corsica that we hadn't seen. But what the hell. What we had seen was gorgeous, and we could always go back - but perhaps minus mother next time!
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