The boat leaves early because of the light, and because by eleven the water at the arch has other people in it. There were four of us and the man who owned the boat. He did not talk. I have…
Archives for September 2026
Taormina, and the Mountain Underneath It
The sand here is grey. Not dirty. Grey the way slate is grey, and warm underfoot before eight in the morning, and I had been swimming off it for three days before I properly understood what I was lying on….
Matera, and the Bread They Had to Sign
Every household here had a stamp, and the stamp had their initials cut into it, and you pressed it into the dough before you carried it out of your door. Not decoration. The oven was not yours. Nobody down in…
Corsica, and the Smell Nobody Warns You About
I was awake before five because of a dog, and then I stayed awake because of the smell. It comes in off the hill behind the town and it is not a flower smell. It is resinous and herbal and…
The Best Time to Visit Corsica
The short answer is June or September, and if you can only take one, September. The longer answer is that Corsica has a narrower good season than the Mediterranean average, because the sea takes a long time to warm and…
Getting to Corsica and Around
Two decisions, and the second one matters more than people expect. Which airport or port you arrive at determines the whole shape of your trip, because Corsica is long and the roads are slow. And whether you hire a car…
Where to Eat in Corsica and What to Order
Corsican food is not French food and it is not Italian food. It is mountain cooking from a poor island, built on three things: pigs that live half wild in the chestnut woods, sheep and goats, and the chestnut itself….
The Best Corsica Boat Tours
More of Corsica is off the road than on it. An entire UNESCO listed reserve has no land access at all. The best beach in the north is a boat ride or a four and a half hour walk. The…
Where to Stay in Corsica: Choosing Your Base
The most useful sentence in this guide: you cannot see Corsica from one base. The island is a hundred and eighty kilometres long with a mountain range down the middle, so the roads go around rather than across. Two bases…
Calvi and the Balagne
The gentlest part of Corsica, and the easiest to love on a first trip. The Balagne was once called the garden of Corsica, and the shape of it explains why: mountains close behind, a fertile strip of olive and fig…
Scandola and the Gulf of Porto
Three things sit next to each other on the west coast of Corsica, and together they are UNESCO listed: the Scandola nature reserve, the Gulf of Girolata, and the Calanques de Piana. It is the most dramatic stretch of coast…
Bonifacio: The Town on the Cliffs
From the sea it looks like a mistake somebody got away with. Bonifacio sits on a spine of white chalk at the southern tip of Corsica, and the sea has spent several thousand years eating away underneath it. So the…
