Loop from Ajaccio

01 Museum

Maison Bonaparte

Maison de Napoléon Bonaparte

In the old town of Ajaccio, find the house where Napoleon Bonaparte was born on 15 August 1769. The former Casa Bozzi gradually became the home of the Buonapartes, through successive dowries, divisions and purchases. Now a museum, it tells the story of a Corsican family of notables more than the career of the emperor.

02 Coast

Pointe de la Parata

Follow the path to the Genoese tower of 1608 that crowns the tip of the peninsula, facing the Sanguinaires islands. The granite plunges into a clear sea, while the archipelago stretches out to sea in a line of islets. At sunset, the low light skims the rocks and picks out the islands one by one against the horizon.

03 Coast

Capu Rossu

Reach the Capu Rossu on foot, by a shadeless path that climbs steeply towards the tower. This pink granite cape, on the western tip of Corsica, carries the Genoese Turghiu tower, built in 1608, at 331 metres. From the top, the view sweeps from the Gulf of Porto to the Calanques de Piana.

04 Village

Piana, Corse-du-Sud

Piana

Piana overlooks the Gulf of Porto, two kilometres from its calanques, granite torn into needles and columns three hundred metres above the sea. Take the D81, narrow and winding, which snakes through these rocks, a World Heritage Site since 1983. Granite and pink porphyry change colour here with the light.

05 Monument

Torra di Portu

Tour Génoise de Porto

Perched 45 metres up on a rocky spur in the Gulf of Porto, this Genoese tower, now in ruins, was one of the first built on the west coast of Corsica, around 1551. Note its square plan, unusual when most of its neighbours are round. It belongs to the network of towers that Genoa raised against the Barbary pirates.

06 Gorge

Gorges de la Spelunca

Follow the old mule track linking Évisa to Ota through the depths of the Spelunca gorges, between dizzying rock walls and Laricio pines. It crosses the Tavulella on the Genoese bridge of Zaglia, a single arch built in 1797 by Antonio Bensa. Further down, the clear water invites a pause before the Pianella bridge.

07 Heritage

Citadelle de Calvi

Built with Genoese support between the 13th and 15th centuries, the citadel crowns a high granite rock, its four bastions surrounded by the sea on three sides. Above the entrance you can still read the motto 'Civitas Calvi semper fidelis'. Cross the drawbridge to wander its lanes up to the dome of the church of Saint-Jean-Baptiste.

08 Village

Sant'Antonino, Haute-Corse

Sant'Antonino

Perched at 500 metres on a granite peak, Sant'Antonino overlooks the plain of Aregno, in the heart of the Balagne, between L'Île-Rousse and Calvi. Leave the car where the road ends and lose yourself in the lanes coiled around the rock. Its stone houses, welded to one another, form a defensive maze from which the view sweeps out to sea.

09 Village

Pigna, Haute-Corse

Pigna

Clinging at 224 metres to its spur of rock, Pigna overlooks Algajola and the Balagne coast. Take time to stroll through this village which, after rural decline, enjoyed a revival in the 1960s. A potter, an engraver, a luthier and a flute maker have set up their workshops here.

10 Village

L'Île-Rousse

Walk out to the Île de la Pietra, where the lighthouse and a Genoese tower stand on rocks of red porphyry. It is these islets that gave their name to the town, founded in 1765 by Pasquale Paoli. Behind the port, its straight streets lead to the covered market and its twenty-one columns.

11 Castle

Citadelle de Saint-Florent

Above the gulf, you glimpse the Genoese citadel built in 1440, around which the town of Saint-Florent grew in the 16th century. Its two round towers and its square tower guarded the port and protected Bastia's rear. It was from here that, in 1795, Pasquale Paoli set sail for England, where he ended his days in exile.

12 Monument

Torra di Nonza

Tour de Nonza

Standing at around 160 metres at the top of the village, the square tower of Nonza, in schist and green serpentine, looks out over the Gulf of Saint-Florent. Built or rebuilt in 1757 on Paoli's orders, it was defended against the French by Casella, deserted by his men, thanks to an ingenious use of fire. Look up at its parapet with broad merlons.

13 Village

Centuri, Haute-Corse

Centuri

In the north-west of Cap Corse, the harbour of Centuri is one of the rare shelters on a coast battered by the libeccio. The island of Capense is home to a bird reserve, and Capo Bianco raises green-tinged rocks to the north. Take time to watch the lobster fishermen's boats come home.

14 Village

Rogliano, Haute-Corse

Rogliano

Follow the coast to the north-eastern tip of Cap Corse, of which Rogliano is the historic capital. The church of Santa Maria Assunta della Chiappella, ruined around 1568, was rebuilt here, and the neighbouring tower, blown open in 1796 by English cannon, raises its ruins in the sea. The Agnello tower, still intact, overlooks the Pointe du Cap Corse nature reserve.

15 Monument

Torra d'Erbalunga

Tour d'Erbalunga

On the eastern coast of Cap Corse, this ruined Genoese tower was part of the string of defences raised against the Barbary pirates. Already standing in 1488 and torn down by French troops in 1553, it was rebuilt after they withdrew from the island. From the village, take in its broken silhouette, set on the rocks facing the sea.

16 Castle

Citadelle et palais du Gouverneur

Built by the Genoese in the 1380s, under Leonello Lomellini, the fort crowns the headland overlooking the Old Port. Pass through the Louis XVI gate, then look above the second entrance for the worn griffins of the Republic of Genoa. On Place du Donjon, the Governors' Palace housed Genoa's representatives until the 18th century.

17 Village

Corte, Haute-Corse

Corte

In the centre of the island, Corte was the capital of Pasquale Paoli's independent Corsica, from 1755 to 1769. See its citadel perched on a rock above the rooftops, home to the Museum of Corsica since 1997. Below the upper town, the Tavignano and the Restonica meet after carving their gorges into the granite.

18 Mountain

Gorges de la Restonica

Rising at Lac de Melo, on Monte Rotondo, the Restonica tumbles towards Corte between waterfalls and pools of clear water. Take the shuttle to A Frassetta, then walk up to the Grotelle sheepfolds or the lakes. Since the storms of November 2023, which swept away a bridge, the road no longer serves the upper valley.

19 Archaeology

Alalia

You are on the land of Alalia, a city that passed to the Etruscans after the naval battle of 535 BC, in which the Greeks lost sixty ships. Rome took it in 259 and made it Aléria, a Roman colony that became the capital of Corsica. Necropolises, a Greek wall and Roman baths mark out this past.

20 Mountain

Col de Bavella

At 1,218 metres, the Col de Bavella opens onto the granite needles bristling across the massif, on the road from Solenzara to Zonza. Beside the road stands the statue of Notre-Dame-des-Neiges, and the GR20 crosses the pass. Take your time to gaze at the orange granite of the needles between the twisted Laricio pines.

21 Beach  · Family

Palombaggia

Facing the Cerbicale islands, the beaches of Palombaggia stretch their white sand between red rocks, beneath umbrella pines. It is hard to believe that this shore, long left to hunters and campers, only received water, electricity and telephone in the 1970s. The Conservatoire du littoral now protects 18 hectares behind the sand.

22 Heritage

Citadelle de Bonifacio

Discover the upper town perched on a limestone plateau edged on the sea side by a cliff of around 60 metres. In the last years of the 12th century, Genoa made it its first garrison town in Corsica, to watch over the passage to Sardinia. At the cliff's edge, the houses seem suspended above the void and the Strait of Bonifacio.

23 Mountain

Lion de Roccapina

At the Roccapina pass, on the RN 196, a rock of pink granite takes the shape of a lion lying down. Not far away stands a 17th-century Genoese tower, and the Conservatoire du littoral acquired the hillside in 1977. Take the time to catch the silhouette of the reclining beast from the road.

24 Village

Sartène

Mérimée saw it as the most Corsican town on the island, and its tall grey granite façades, perched above the Rizzanese valley, prove him right. On the Place Porta, the Église Sainte-Marie keeps the cross and chain of the Catenacciu penitent. Pass under the vault of the old Genoese palace to reach the lanes of Manichedda.

25 Archaeology

Filitosa

Take the time to look the statue-menhirs of Filitosa in the face, granite faces with hollowed eyes, sometimes armed with a sword or a dagger. Fragments had been reused in the wall before Roger Grosjean's excavations, from 1957 to 1972. In the Taravo valley, the Bronze Age castellu keeps a curtain wall and two towers.