Corsica - part 1 the west coast

Our first proper holiday (more than a couple of days) since COVID. A 12 days tour of Western and Northern Corsica with a final dash through the centre. Susie and I met up at Ajaccio. Susie flew from Bristol via Nantes as she had been running a half marathon in Cheltenham to raise money for the Sue Ryder hospice where her sister died and I flew in from Toulouse. First stop Cargèse.

View from the window

The first day we spent on the beach at plage de Péro, swimming and snorkelling. We saw lots of sea bream and a little octopus in the crystal clear waters. Everything in corsica is expensive, especially food which was a bit of a shock - fortunately we had opted to mostly self cater. 

Next day we headed up the coast to Piana and a lovely beach at plage d'Arone.

view across the bay of Porto on the way to plage d'Arone

In the late afternoon we took the road to Porto passing through the amazing Calanques an incrdible landscape of red granite towers and weathered extraordinary shapes dropping steeply all the way to the sea.

On our last day in this area we headed to Porto once more and then headed inland for a stroll along the gorge de spelunca before heading out on a boat trip from Porto to visit the Calanques, Capo Rousso, the nature reserve of Spandola and the village of Girolata. the boats takes you in and out of caves and tunnels through the cliffs. Alas the seabirds for which Scandola is famous were entirely absent. We opted for the high speed Zodiac which was exciting crossing the bay.

A long drive on incredibly twisting roads took us to our next destination the Bonifatu Forest.