I Went on a Self-guided Tour of Corsica — and It Was an Journey Lover’s Dream

I clung to the face of the limestone cliff like a crab, my fingers turning white as they clawed the chalky rock. To my left, the sandy path the place I stood narrowed, dropping away greater than 200 toes to the ocean beneath. 

“Simply maintain strolling,” my brother, Jared, yelled from farther up, the place the monitor widened. “It’s simpler in case you go quick.” Jared and I had spent the previous six days adventuring via Corsica, a French territory that, regardless of being essentially the most mountainous island within the Mediterranean, is usually related to dramatic seaside cliffs and white-sand seashores. For many years, guests to the 114-mile-long île, which sits west of the Italian peninsula and north of Sardinia, have docked their yachts within the marinas and partied on the flashy seaside resorts. 

However not us. For one week in June, Jared and I wakened early every morning, pulled on Smartwool socks, and ate hearty breakfasts of cured meats and crumbly brocciu cheese. We cycled on winding roads, hiked up granite mountains, and slid down waterfalls — and on the finish of the journey, we lastly rested our weary our bodies by the seaside. 

Our self-guided tour, which was organized by the journey operator Butterfield & Robinson, started within the northern a part of the island. Inside an hour of touchdown at Bastia-Poretta Airport from Paris, we parked our rental automobile within the city of Oletta, the place we’d be spending the night time at Aethos Corsica, a restored Seventeenth-century palazzo turned lodge. There we met our first information, Anthony Laplagne, who leads biking excursions. The three of us hopped on e-bikes for a 20-mile round-trip journey to the fishing port of St.-Florent, zooming alongside steep, curvy roads that made me grip the brakes so exhausting my palms tingled. 

About seven miles in, we stopped at Ribella, a roadside craft brewery the place I sipped a draft beer known as the Madonna whereas Laplagne regaled us with a story from Corsican mythology. “God created the world, and on the finish, he had a mixture of totally different items of land left over,” he mentioned. “So, he put every little thing collectively and dropped them within the water, and that grew to become Corsica.”

We received our subsequent glimpse of the various terrain the next day, after driving an hour inland to the college city of Corté. The white noise of cicadas crammed the air as we pulled as much as Dominique Colonna, a contemporary 29-key lodge that sits on the maquis, a wild panorama that blends desert and forest. There was additionally a shallow creek, and once we realized we might swim in it, Jared and I tiptoed over the slippery rocks and sunk into the cool water.

Quickly after, I used to be stretched, pulled, and kneaded within the spa cabin, the place floor-to-ceiling home windows ignored the stream we’d simply swum in. Not that I might see something, face down and blissed out, however I appreciated the connection to the land all of the identical.

After a buffet breakfast the subsequent morning that included 4 kinds of house-made granola and 6 fruit jams, plus heat chocolate-hazelnut cookies, Jared and I had been on our means once more. En path to the southeastern village of Chisà, we let loose a “wow” each couple miles as we entered what regarded like a display screen saver: blue mountains silhouetted towards the sky, with hovering pine timber enveloping us on both aspect. My brother navigated the single-lane, snaking roads with a mischievous, childlike grin. “It’s like driving in a online game,” he mentioned. 

We had been headed to our subsequent exercise: aqua rando. The time period is an amalgam of two of the three languages spoken in Corsica (Corsu, French, and Italian). Aqua is Italian for water, whereas rando is brief for randonnée, which suggests hike in French. We’d be climbing in water — a primary for us each. 

Our information, Guillaume Ferreri, met us at a bridge on the outskirts of Chisà. After donning moist fits, waterproof boots, helmets, and clip-on canvas pads to assist us slide over moist rocks, we waded into the Travo River. The water was so clear and clear we might drink it — and spot trout and eels swimming beneath. Whereas I translated for Jared, Ferreri instructed us on when to slip, soar, and float as we made our means downstream for 2 hours. That is wild, I believed — what the French would name sauvage. Buoyant on my again, I gazed up on the timber, boulders, and sky because the chilly rush shot me ahead, muffling all sound. 

Because it seems, climbing in a river is exhausting. We spent the remainder of the afternoon nodding off on lounge chairs at A Pignata, a hilltop inn and dealing farm. Inside, the 19 rooms really feel country-chic, with their mismatched furnishings; there are additionally a few stone barns and fashionable tree homes. 

Dinner was a five-course affair within the open-air eating room. With the timing of a choreographer, our server introduced us sliced figatellu, a preferred native pork sausage, adopted by a soup of greens from the backyard, braised lamb in a thick gravy, and cannelloni lined in melted brocciu cheese. Simply once we thought we would burst, out got here a bowl of frivolously dressed lettuce, a basket of stone fruit, extra cheeses to dip in a house-made jam, and, lastly, sugar-coated beignets. Jared and I stumbled again to our duplex room in gradual movement, as if we had been nonetheless sporting these cumbersome moist fits. 

Our final day inland consisted of a hike led by mountaineer and photographer Christophe Melchers, who guided us into the Alta Rocca mountain vary in southern Corsica. The very best level, a jagged cluster known as the Bavella Needles, soars greater than 6,000 toes. We started by strolling via fields of ferns so tall they tickled my naked shoulders. Up we climbed for a few hours, slithering via tight granite crevices and passing beneath tall pines. Once we lastly reached our summit, we sat for a snack of salami and cheese, gazing on the Mediterranean Sea within the distance. 

That glittering expanse can be our end-of-trip retreat for the subsequent two nights. We checked in to the lavish Hôtel U Capu Biancu, a 20-minute drive from the city of Bonifacio, close to the southern tip of the island. Now a preferred seaside vacation spot, the city was in-built A.D. 830 on the coast’s white cliffs — the identical steep escarpments I’d later be gripping like a crustacean on a self-guided hike.

When Jared and I returned to the lodge, sweaty and lined in mud, we had been happy to be again in Capu Biancu’s pure but comfy setting: stone partitions, uncovered beams, and ornamental driftwood. We took turns dipping into the amoeba-shaped out of doors pool, swinging in a hidden hammock, and napping in a sun-dappled gazebo by the shore. For the primary time on this in any other case go-go-go getaway, I reveled within the thought of doing nothing — and doing it once more tomorrow. 

Find out how to Guide

Butterfield & Robinson can design self-guided Corsica excursions that embody highway biking, climbing, and aqua rando. Six-day journeys from $8,795 per individual for 2 folks, together with lodging.

A model of this story first appeared within the July 2024 concern of Journey + Leisure beneath the headline “Au Naturel.”