Talk to me about all things Corsica. Planning on spending 10 nights. What to do see, do, stay, dine, etc.?
I’m following this.
We are booked at Luxury hotel restaurant and spa in Porto Vecchio | 5 stars | Casadelmar for four nights in early mid-September, following a week stay on Sardinia, neither of which we have visited before.
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Excited to hear your thoughts! We thought about doing both Corsica and Sardinia, but didn’t think we’d have enough time to do both.
Mark - Where are you staying in Sardinia? I love it and very different from the rest of Italy as it was Carthaginian for a long time.
Will look through my old Adv in Paris thread and, if I can’t find the place… will try and geolocate from pics. We VRBO’d for a week and the owners sent us to a restaurant up in the trees, a little north of Prunete. Was all fixed menu, family style food and I had no idea what was coming because… there was no menu!!!
Had the following in my notes, but can’t find the restaurant…
Blockquote The ridiculousness that is August in Paris is over, with most places opening on Monday/Tuesday. The idea of living without my bakeries and butchers was so bad, we said screw it and packed up for Portugal for 11 days, then Corsica for a week.
Blockquote The Corsica story is a funny one, so I’ll share more. We live above a small Lebanese restaurant and have befriended the staff and quite a few of their regulars. I’ll stop by for a beer a couple of times a week and spend 75% of the conversation using translate.google.com on my mobile, which is something I would have never imagined before moving here. One of the guys is fluent in English and was emphatic that we visit Corsica this summer. I looked at the Air France flights (~$225), checked VRBO availability and said “f it, let’s go!” I came back an hour later and told him I booked plane tickets and showed him where we were staying and he gave me one of those “you can’t be serious” faces…
Blockquote Best way I can describe Corsica is Maui in the Mediterranean, but better wine/cheese/charcuterie, as it’s part of France. After a 90 minute flight, we arrived at a dinky airport in Bastia and picked up our Opel (seats 7). Quick note - as with most places in Europe, the vast majority of vehicles are stick; if you need an automatic, call and make sure you reserve it ahead of time. Also note that Europcar has cheap rentals, but long lines… as a data point, I booked with Enterprise using a corp code and dropped it from 1200 euros to 340 for a week.
Blockquote We missed some of the bigger destinations (Ajaccio, Bonifacio) because traffic is a joke on the island after 10 AM (spent 2 hrs going down a straight-stretch of 100 km), but were able to hit quite a few beaches and towns from Porto Vecchio north to Cap de Corse and down to St Florent. We became experts at GPS beach-hunting, which entailed watching the nav screen for patches of beach along the coast, identifying nearby roads to get there and then driving aimlessly down dirt roads to get there. Food highlights include an ungodly amount of Coppa Corse and Lonza, tons of shellfish, and the clear winner of “wine of the summer” - Clos Canarelli rose, which I started drinking in Paris a month before we left.
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The Pitrizzia, if we end up going. We just returned from a last minute two weeks in Cabo and are deciding whether we want another beach resort stay. Sardinia/Corsica is a part of a longer itinerary and we’d need to pack a bunch of additional stuff that wouldn’t fit with the remainder (Paris and London) of the trip.
Haven’t been to that one, been to Cala di Volpe and the Cervo.
Costa Smerelda was great; also , really loved Cagliari
We were only there one day, and just in the Patrimonio area, but it was great (and our guide was excellent). See Cruising between Nice and Venice - Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, etc - #7 by bradkaplan
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Found it!!! → Auberge à la Ferme A Mandria - https://www.amandria.corsica Caveat - not a fine dining experience with a long wine list, but was a blast. With kids, it was even cooler, as there were geckos running along the roof/trees. It is pretty challenging to find…
Saint Florent was also lovely for a half-day trip with lunch.