Eastern Corsica

Dolphins don’t give a toss

So many thoughts chase each other around in my mind as the ferry pulls away from the port of Vado Ligure. I feel there’s something ancestrally right about leaving the mainland, letting go, setting sail, detaching from what is known, ordinary, everyday.

And then, just a few hours later, as we cross this strip of sea between two nations, I sense that we’re truly nowhere: no longer in Italy, not yet in France. We’re in-between. All my life I’ve felt in-between. And all my life I’ve felt well when I’m in-between, when I feel I belong to no nation and to all of them at once.

Suddenly, a pod of dolphins begins to follow the ferry, half-empty in late July 2024, as the great summer exodus has yet to begin. They chase us across this massive floating city—enormous and stable—that sails the sea with almost arrogant confidence, typical of humans that believe they dominate the Mediterranean.

I watch them from the side where we’ve settled for the five-hour journey that will bring me and my two dear friends once again to one of the islands we love most in this part of the world. I realise that beneath us lies an entire world still to be discovered. We humans are so small, yet so conceited. And the dolphins? They don’t give a toss: they play, leap out of the calm sea like flashes of joy. We point them out and we smile at their acrobatics.

Why it’s impossible not to love Corsica

It’s the second time I’ve returned to Corsica with my two dear friends. But even during our first experience, I felt a profound and unconditional love for these shores. Because Corsica is raw, wild: you can go entire days without truly encountering another soul. Because in Corsica, you can travel slowly, without demands, without pressure.

We terrans, unconsciously unsettled by our sedentary lives and the constraints of sprawling cities that often crush our souls and stifle movement, on islands like Corsica, we find ourselves separated from the weight of the mainland and feel strangely at home.

In Corsica, you come across cats stretching lazily at sunset in front of old doors of second homes, some abandoned for years. They too couldn’t care less about your presence, just like the dolphins on the Mediterranean.

In Corsica, you can lose yourself even while using GPS, and find yourself, inexplicably and by chance, inside Domaine Terra Vecchia, one of the island’s most renowned vineyards. Located near Aléria, between sea and mountains, on the banks of the Diana lagoon, in a region called Costa Serena. Here, the chirping of cicadas blends with the breeze that brushes through the shadows, gracious guests across these fertile lands. Every long row of vines begins with a rosebush. It’s a partnership between species: if there’s trouble in the soil, the roses alert us, protecting both. If only we could do the same—between nations and peoples—help one another instead of tearing each other down.

Aléria, the ancient capital of Corsica

In the heart of Corsica’s eastern coast, Aléria preserves the footprints of a millennia-old past. Founded by the Phocaean Greeks in the 6th century BC under the name Alalia, it became the setting for epic clashes like the naval battle against the Etruscans and Carthaginians. With the arrival of the Romans in 259 BC, the city changed its face and its name, becoming Aléria—the island’s capital under the empire of Augustus, boasting over 20,000 inhabitants.

Immersed in the heart of Corsica’s history, Aléria’s museum and archaeological site are not well know gems. The fort that houses the museum is a 14th-century Genoese structure, perched on a hill with a spectacular view over the Tavignano river and the surrounding plains. I can only recommend a visit: inside, you’ll discover collections of Greek, Roman and Etruscan ceramics; bronze weapons; coins; amphorae; and everyday objects from local archaeological digs. But what truly stands out are unique pieces like zoomorphic cups with dog and horse heads, and a dish depicting Hannibal’s elephants.

In Europe, as in many corners of the planet, history reveals an intricate web of connection. And yet, in these dystopian times, we often pretend to forget. We play at killing one another because we’re told we are different. And we are told we are better than them.

After the museum visit, we continue to the nearby archaeological site, home to the ruins of the ancient city. From this part of the visit, I carry a very precise auditory memory, one that echoes throughout Corsica in summer: the song of the cicadas. Under the late July sun, they scream as if their tiny lungs are about to burst, accompanying us as we explore the site. No other sounds. Just a few well-mannered visitors besides the three of us.

The ruins are well-preserved, including remains of homes and public buildings, traces of an ancient Roman forum, and a necropolis. But the story doesn’t end there: the site is still actively excavated, continuing to reveal new artefacts. History continues to inhabit our consciousness.

Tamaricciu Beach

There are certain places in Corsica that have stuck to me over the years. Tamaricciu Beach is one of them.

Perhaps it’s the time of year when my two dear friends and I arrive: there aren’t many people around. We stick our battered umbrellas far from the other visitors and no one bats an eyelid, and we keep saying to ourselves it can’t be real, this place (free of charge too, mind you, most beaches in Corsica don’t ask a penny).

Maybe it’s the sand, pale as golden flour, or the crystal-clear water that looks like a thought just born. Its colour shifts with the light, gliding from turquoise to pure glass. Maybe it’s the grey granite rocks, smoothed by wind and time, rising like islands of calm, with little natural pools nestled between them where the sun lingers to play, and we join it.

Or maybe it’s simply that I’m here, at Tamaricciu, with two of the people I love most in the world.

At lunchtime, we grab a pizza (delicious, by the way) from a spot just a short walk from where we’ve pitched our umbrellas, and sit watching the tamarix africana, the fascinating and resilient plants that give this beach its name. These pioneering shrubs are evergreen, reaching up to five metres tall, with broad crowns and long, flexible branches. They strengthen the soil, protect dunes from erosion, and create microhabitats for other species. Drought- and salt-resistant, they’re perfectly suited to coastal life. Their leaves are tiny and scale-like, edged with a translucent rim, while their flowers, arranged in cylindrical spikes, are delicate and minuscule.

I don’t know if I’d ever have taken the time to notice trees in the city, where life rushes and stumbles. But here, with my two beloved friends, Time itself comes to greet me. It invites me to pause and see, rather than sneak through the traffic.

At Tamaricciu, our day unfolds just like that: watching the trees, swimming and running in the sea, laughing at nothing. And maybe that’s how the best days of our lives play out. There doesn’t always need to be a bang, a grand gesture, for them to stay with us. Sometimes, the days etched in our hearts are made of quiet moments. The ones where we’re simply ourselves: when we forget the sun cream and end up with sun-roasted feet, soaking them in a basin of ice water at the end of the day. And it’s right then we realise, we were genuinely happy. It would be beautiful if there were a way to know you’re living the good old days—before they slip into the past.

In Corsica, the trees wait to be read again

Along the island’s roads, the wind still knows how to speak to the trees. Forests and cork oak plantations are visible everywhere, but especially along the southern coast. They stand like sentinels with wrinkled bark, growing slowly. They too couldn’t care less about our frantic rhythms.

Each cork oak guards a secret: beneath its thick, irregular bark pulses a promise. But it doesn’t yield easily. One must wait fifteen years—an entire arboreal adolescence—before a person can perform the ancient gesture of demasclage. It’s a silent ritual, almost sacred. The harvester of old approaches with reverence, like an artisan before a living creature. With skilled hands, he cuts into the bark, lifting it gently without harming the tree. What emerges is the male cork: raw, knotted, imperfect. It’s not used for bottling, but it is the tree’s first breath toward its true calling.

Then you wait again. Nine, ten, twelve years. And when the tree is ready, it offers a different cork: finer, purer, more pliable. This is the female cork—the one that sings inside bottles of wine.

But today, in Corsica, those skilled hands have grown scarce. Fewer families engage in this craft, and younger generations no longer learn it. Cork forests fold in on themselves, swallowed by brambles and forgotten. And still, each tree keeps growing, waiting for someone to return and read its skin.

The Bavella Pass

You can reach Bavella from Zonza or Solenzara, travelling a scenic road that’s one of the most beautiful in Corsica. But that practical, textbook phrase doesn’t do justice to the splendour of this part of the island.

The road winds upward towards the pass: tight curves, laricio pines bent by the wind or split by heartless lightning and wildfires—yet nothing halts our jeep or our conversations.

In Zonza, there’s almost no one around this late July, which is a blessing—we get another chance to talk to the people who live here.

And that’s another point in Corsica’s favour: people are kind. I realise I’m writing clichés that might be shattered by different travellers’ experiences, but mine is this: in Corsica (in lesser-known Corsica, less exposed to luxury tourism) I’ve often, and repeatedly, felt that the people are genuinely curious about those who arrive on their island.

Acrobatics for an extremely common plant

Anyone who’s followed this blog for a few years knows that many of my travels include epic falls and heart-thumping recklessness (case in point: this one in Greece—Let Me Tell You About Our Island – Skandorina’s Travels—where I left behind an ankle and, with the same two friends, got stuck on a beach). Eastern Corsica doesn’t disappoint in that department.

Let’s start from the top: wherever you go in Corsica, among the most common succulents you’ll spot prickly pears, also known as opuntia. They’re towering cactus plants with flat, spiky paddles that grow easily across sun-baked slopes and coastal spots, often used to mark property lines or as natural fencing. They grow everywhere in Corsica—worth repeating. We never even considered nicking a protected or rare plant. My best friend and I? We fixated on snagging one of these very common, oh-so-common cactus paddles.

During this second trip to the island, we could’ve just pulled over and picked one from the side of any of about 1,500 roads. But simple and low-risk things? Never our style.

On our last day in Bastia, we left the house saying we were just off to take the rubbish to the bins by our flat. In one hand: garbage. In the other: a laughably blunt kitchen knife that wouldn’t slice soft bread. We walked ten metres and spotted our prize: the paddles we’d smuggle back to Italy (as though these blessed plants didn’t already grow in abundance back home).

And us? Mythical creatures, clearly. We choose not the bush within easy reach, but one that juts out about a metre from the road, dangling over nothing. Ridiculous? Perhaps. Could we have walked just a hundred more metres and found a safer, quicker candidate? Absolutely.

But no, we wanted those paddles. So, with an agility that does not, under any circumstances, define me, I wedge myself into a bench-like pose on the wall, clutching the knife, and reach toward our quarry. Meanwhile, my friend holds onto my feet and grips the waistband of my trousers.

After several attempts and a frankly immeasurable amount of laughter, we succeed. We have our decidedly non-exotic cactus paddles.

Heroic? Not really. Reckless? Very much so. Legendary? Without a doubt.