Corsica: The (is)land of overladen figs and evergreen oaks

When I landed in Bastia at the northern end of the island of Corsica on the 31st August 2026, I was not sure what to expect. Many who had visited Corsica before spoke of its extraordinary beauty, of its neverending beaches, of its Mediterranean weather and of cities perched on ancient cliffs along the sea. I was going there not as a tourist but to visit my anthropologist friend Philippe, who had moved to Corsica after his retirement this summer. 

Bastia airport was small but functional. Philippe and his partner Corinne were waiting, Soon we were out of town and heading towards the mountains. The pretty and narrow pebbled mountain river Golo accompanied us on our drive out from Bastia and at some point we came to an old abandoned broken bridge Ponte Novo where in 1769 the soldiers of the independent Corsican Republic led by Pascale Paoli was defeated by the Royal French army, Philippe told me. I needed to brush up on Corsican history, I told myself.

The Meditteranean from Philippe's parents' home near Ajaccio

              

Scanceria

Why did you choose Corsica, I had asked Philippe. Because I have Corsican roots, he replied. Although he had grown up elsewhere and had spent most of his working life in and around Paris, they had always returned to the island for the summers at least. His mother was from Algeria but that was even further back in the past. Their parents had built a lovely holiday home for themselves in a tiny village overlooking the sea, not too far from Ajaccio. But Philippe preferred the hills ... so he had found for himself a pretty little home in the amazingly tiny village Castellare di Mercurio with only about a score houses perched on top of a steep hill not too far away from Corte, the only bigger city that does not lie along the coast. There are not more than 30 people living in the village at present, although the numbers can go up in the summer and down in winter. There is only one grocery store 'Scanceria' in the village run by a very efficient lady called Caroline; the store also doubles as a cafe or restaurant for hikers who cross the village while doing their long  coast to coast treks. The next village has a post office, I was told. Another neighbouring village had a pharmacy. For everything else one went to Corte. Wifi was good even in remote areas, but not sure if rapid Amazon delivery worked there [It does, Philippe tells me, via the normal postal service]. So one must have a car if one wants to live there.

a view of the village from above 

Perched between the village church and the craggy rugged  mountain that seemed to change colour every hour, the house that Philippe rents came with its own grape vine, a few fig trees and some little patches of land in which he grows tomatoes, salad, paprika and squashes. Fig trees overladen with fruit, pear trees, grape vines with abundant sweet grapes, tomatoes,... the rugged mountains all around and the incredible morning and evening light that illuminated the surrounding landscape ... it seemed almost like paradise. What looked like a terrifying dragon head on the mountain flank in the evening from Philippe's terrace turned out to be just two harmless trees the next morning. The stillness of the nights on Philippe's terrace were almost deafening. Only mosquitoes followed us everywhere after dusk. On the days we drove out, we saw  hillsides ravaged forest fires closeby caused by the extreme summer heat. They had two helicopters stationed closeby which are used for such emergencies. And we saw a huge water reservoir on our trek from where water could be taken to douze such fires as and when needed. 

Closer up

The whole village is up and down, every house at a different level. There are stone steps everywhere; the houses are made of thick heavy stones, hewn out of the mountains, I am sure. Therefore the walls are very thick -- just as well because the winters there must be bitterly cold. Everyone in the village knows everyone else and there was no need to lock the doors or to worry about intruders, except for mosquitoes, bats, the occasional wild boar and the wandering cows, typical of Corsican breeding practices. Just at the entrance of the village was the public cemetery; on the other side of the road were family graves in plots of their own. There is a village church with a tall bell tower right next to Philippe's house but it remains locked all the time. There are no regular services as there is no pastor. 

Inside the village church

Philippe got the keys from the oldest lady of the village, 95 year old Marcelle, who lives all by herself  and still seems to be completely fit and healthy. She kindly showed us around in her house -- a very modern kitchen equipped with every possible gadget was a sharp contrast to the wall papered bedroom with lace everywhere and her living room filled with beautiful period furniture. She was a school teacher in Bastia but moved back to her own village after retirement. She very kindly offered to explain more about the church and the village someday. Unfortunately my French let me down and apart from the obligatory Bonjour and Merci beaucoup, I had not much more to boast about. Philippe has his books, his music and his Corsican language lessons that keeps him busy when he is not pottering around in the garden. His partner Corinne prefers bigger places, and has her home near Toulon. But when she visits she finds herself things to do -- reading, cooking, and even embroidery. The gurgling noise of her e-cigarette told me where to find her. 

Dry and stoney yet green

There are trekking paths in all directions, as the area is part of the Corsica National Park. One day Philippe took me for a short and easy trek up the hillside, around the valley and up the next hill to a little mountain top shrine of San Martinu, which to my intense disappointment, was locked when we finally got to it. There is nothing much inside, Philippe reassured me. Why did we come here then, I wondered, but then found the answer myself -- we needed a destination!  The chestnut trees and evergreen oaks along our rocky and stony path spoke of resilience and stability. The steep rocky mountain slopes covered with vegetation in patches, 
completely bare in the rest, the little villages perched along mountain basins scattered in the

Stoney 

countryside, a few ribbons of narrow roads or paths along the mountains, the bright blue sky above and the gurgling of mountain brooks and the tittering of small birds in the undergrowth was all that kept us company. A kite swooped down towards us, but then decided we were too big to be interesting. There were no human beings in sight, not even animals, although there were signs along our path of recent wild boar activity. The villages had a few lazy cats and some noisy dogs, we saw a bull with a curved horn on the right, and a clipped horn on the left, a brown cow that lived at a particular spot on the road, many sheep grazing in a plot of land, a pair of white and black horses raised by someone, some more horses further down the road towards Corte and so on. A hedgehog crossed our path one night when we were returning home. But that was all...

the baroque bell tower of the village church is striking

One day we went to Corte, a city with about 7000 inhabitants, that has the only university in Corsica and visited the Citadelle with the Eagle's Nest at the top of the hill that houses a lovely anthropological museum showcasing Corsican special crafts and professions -- cheese making, weaving, blacksmithy, and more. What surprised me most in that museum to see and learn was the fact that a dark Moor's head wearing a white bandana is the figure that embellishes the Corsican flag. There were several theories as to why that was so, but still to me it seemed quite strange, and hence fascinating.  As we came down from the fortress, we went past the large but not too grand  Palace from where, Pascale Paoli, the island's greatest statesman (but certainly not the island's most famous name, I will come to that presently), set up and administered the independent Corsican state for a short period from 1755. That young state adopted the first democratic constitution of the modern era, giving the right to vote to women 200 years before France did. That constitution is supposed to have inspired that adopted in the US. Yes, Corte was the capital of Corsica at that time, but not for too long. The area around the fortress was very touristy so we walked down to the main street which looked run down but still quite busy. 

Another day we drove into Ajaccio, the island's present capital, and the birthplace of no le ss than Napoleon Bonaparte, the French emperor. On our two hour drive from the village, we stopped at a high mountain pass to admire Monte Cinto, the highest peak in the island. Very soon, all those mountain ranges would be covered by snow, I was told. I could only imagine how beautiful it might look then. But then driving up so high wouldn't be that easy, Philippe reminded me. Compared to our little hamlet, Ajaccio felt like another world. The harbour and port area was busy, and we drove around a while till we found some parking in the English quarter of town where there were some stately buildings built by some Englishmen and women who had come to live on the island in the past. It was the first day of school in Corsica after the summer break -- the first day of a new school year, so the areas around the schools were bustling with activity -- students were to be seen everywhere holding multicoloured time tables, concerned parents who had accompanied their wards and were waiting to take them back home, for on the first day not much more happened than the distribution of time tables, Philippe told me. 

The seaside at Ajaccio

After a quick coffee in a quaint little cafe, we walked up to the Museum set up by Cardinal Fesch, Napoleon's uncle, which had some beautiful paintings by Italian old masters and from the Renaissance. The ground floor is filled with busts and the family history of Napoleon. Unfortunately, the Corsican section of paintings was closed for renovation. Napoleon's parents and many other close relatives are buried in the chapel on the grounds of the museum. We then walked past Napoleon's home where he was born and where his mother Letizia spent most of her life. But we didn't go in. Again, it did not look too grand and looked like just one of many such houses in that crowded part of town. But we did go into a Church of Mariners filled with models of ships in various shapes and sizes. A visit to the big bookstore of Corsica's capital city did not give me many options of books in English on Corsica that I could buy besides the two well known accounts by James Boswell and the later book by Dorothy Carrington.  I was also surprised that both the museums we had visited had captions only in French and sometimes also in Corsican but very little in English or any other language. 

The Assembly building of Corsica in the English quarter

A group of 4 motorcyclist friends touring Corsica on their bikes joined Philippe and his sister Natalie  for lunch that day...There I got to taste both the famous cheese made from goat (or sheep's) milk called Brocciu and the famous smoked pork sausage called Figatellu, and to drink the locally produced red wine Clos Fornelli. In the evening, we went down to the Mediterranean sea.

Evening over the Mediterranean

The tower of Diana at Aleria

Its crisp blue waters and sandy shores made it easy to understand why Corsica was such a popular tourist destination. Of course the sea is not easy to reach everywhere, especially along its western craggy mountainous coastline. The eastern shores along the Tyrrhenian Sea are much smoother and there are also some plains along the area around Aleria and Bastia. Aleria is on the east coast, and one can almost see Italy from there. Aleria was the Roman capital of Corsica and the Tower of Diana still stands strong along the coast, as do the remains of the Roman (and perhaps even Etruscan) city in the old historic part of Aleria. But the reason we went there was to attend a concert of traditional Corsican music at the Church of St. Marcel. And what a feast it was... 

It was a group of 3 men dressed in black and a lady violinist (also in black). One of the men also played a guitar for some pieces. The men sang, sometimes together, sometimes in succession, a form of local polyphonic music called Paghjella. Their bass sonorous voices resounding out of the deep walls of the ancient church to create a mystic and pure harmony... I was sorry not to be able to understand the commentary that the master of the group interspersed their songs with. He spoke in Corsican, and spoke about the struggle to keep the Corsican language, culture and heritage alive. Thinking of the history of that little island that was coveted by all and subjected to repeated invasions from all directions -- the Greeks, the Romans, the Genoans, the French, and even the British at some point -- it was not hard to see how problematic that could be. 

Although much of the talk of independence etc had sort of calmed down somewhat, and most of Corsica seemed to have accepted their status as a part of the French mainland, it was also clear that Corsicans were proud to be Corsicans and that Corsica was different and distinctive from the rest. Nowhere else can one smell the maquis, a dense jungle of aromatic evergreen plants and shrubs. Although the weather was too dry in September for me to be able to smell the maquis, one could still see how high and dense this thin wiry vegetation can be -- high enough to hide an elephant, Philippe remarked. Of course there were no elephants easily available to demonstrate that truth, but that was another matter. 

I did not make it to the pretty town of Bonifacio with its enchanting medieval clifftop citadel and did not get to see the stone menhirs at Filitosa from a very much earlier time, but I did see enough of the island and the ways of life of the people there, to feel that this trip had given me a sense of something very special, very unique, very different. For this little island had given the world not just Napoleon but also a statesman like Pascale Paoli, the Corsicans had been buffeted in every possible direction but had still held their own, and had not lost their language and cultural traditions somewhere along the way. And those days with Philippe and Corinne had also shown me once more the power of friendship and how comforting it can be to be with friends who care and who are open to the big wide world but are also proud to preserve and cherish their own little patch of the planet to which they feel they belong.