Corsica...the island of beauty

I was unprepared for what I experienced in Corsica.  People kept telling me how "authentic" Corsica was and how beautiful it was but both descriptions fell miles short of what I experienced.  I had an opening for where to visit for my last week in August.  I had considered Croatia, Nice, St. Tropez and Ireland but chose to accept an invitation to visit this small French island off the coast of Italy.

The drive took longer than expected allowing us to see this sunset on the drive up to  Gulfe de Porto.

I understand why everyone calls Cosica “authentic” but I just don’t feel like that is descriptive enough for this small island.  Simply put, this island feels utterly untouched.  Yes, there are small villages along the coastline that host tourists looking for a beautiful, authentic getaway, but when you get there, you still feel like one of a select few that have discovered this beautiful island.

We flew into Ajaccio airport and headed north 89 km to the Gulfe de Porto.  This part of the coastline hosts an incredible nature reserve called, Scandola.  Scandola can only be reached by boat or a 4.5 hour hike on the Col de la Croix.  We chose the boat since A) I’m a lazy American and B) it took us 2 hours to travel the 89 km North to Scandola.  We had expected it to only take an hour and we were dreading the drive south to Bonificio that we had to take later that day... we simply didn't have time to hike, even if I weren't lazy.

Our boat!

This is not color corrected and was taken with my iPhone 5

Corsica!

again, not color corrected....no filters needed.  Mother Nature hit it on the head on this one.

Stilactites!

Natural caves...

Natural rock formations

Our guide says this is a "kissing" rock, but I kind of thought it looked like a vagina....tomato, tomato.

Our boat driver took us to a small fishing village that you can only get to by boat.  When we landed on shore, there were random cows just chillin' on the beach.

We thought that Scandola would be a 1 hour drive north of the airport and Bonificio would be 1.5 hours south of the airport, but with all of the winding roads in Corsica, the daytrip drive took over 4 hours.  Once again, we arrived at our destination after sunset.

A-mazing....again 

Bonificio was a port town on the southern tip of Corsica.  It was actually a lot larger than I had expected. If I had to venture a guess, I would say this was the biggest town on Corsica.  Bonificio consists of 2 parts, the Old Town (Vielle Ville) and the Upper City (Haute Ville). The Upper City looks like a giant fortress that looks over the port.  It houses very old churches, tourist shops, restaurants and art galleries.

View of the Port

The Citadel in the Upper Village of Bonificio

I was really there, I didn't just steal the images off the Internet.

Mom loves when I smile in photos...this one is for you, girl.

Looking awesome, I know.  blech.

Mickael....chillin'

 Next stop... Porto Vecchio.  We stayed at a sick hotel called, Le Goeland. We had the most amazing view from our room...

Panoramic view from our balcony

This was the "bad" view from the side patio

But an even more amazing sunrise view!!!  We actually set our alarm for 6am to see it and we were so thankful we did!

The food was amazing, too.

Sea Bass for lunch

Swordfish for lunch

We actually extended our trip 1 extra day because Mickael had a surprise for me.  So, I rearranged my flight and ferry to Greece and anxiously awaited what it could be...