I feel like Corsica is one of those places where someone will say the name and it vaguely sounds familiar, yet nothing comes to mind. When we looked for destinations for our summer travels this past season, Corsica, a beautiful French island, had affordable flights. You know us, we can’t resist a good deal, sold! Disclaimer, we did look up pictures prior to booking. They looked beautiful. Spoiler alert, it has effortlessly earned a top spot in our most favorite traveled places! If you ever go, just let us know. Seriously. We may join you.
I’m going to try to write this briefly (or what looks like brief for me) otherwise I’ll never get around to posting this. If you haven’t noticed with some of the blog posts, I get really into the story telling and then if I don’t have time carved out, I fall really behind with life and travel updates or quirky lists! So I’ll do a hybrid with this post. Short story lists 🙂
- The shoreline has some dramatic cliffs.
Most of our trip focused on southern Corisca. Pictured below was one of our first hikes, you can even see Kevin and Hedgehog – those little ants marching one by one. There’s such a good feeling upon arriving at a new place and experiencing the profound beauty of it all. For me I just want to shake my tail feather and fist pump the excitement. Same feeling of cocooning yourself in a bed full of blankets after a cold day or is that just me?!
Upon our arrival to Corsica, the heat still lingered in its European heatwave. For the first few hikes we were all drenched in sweat. We stayed hydrated and avoiding overdoing it, we even responsibly cut a few hikes short and you know that is saying a lot for Kevin and I, ha! When we finished, I had those flashback vibes of soccer games where you are properly thirsty, dehydrated, and experience the true bliss of biting into a juicy orange after the game!
2. Driving the Calanques de Piana was the most fun!
Another leg of our trip in Corsica led us through the Calanques de Piana. This road narrowly winds through several red rock formations with gorgeous views of the glimmering Baltic Sea. We really enjoyed this and did a hike through this area as well. This trip truly is one of those where you take pictures and then want to throw your camera in frustration because NOTHING will capture the beauty you experience in the present moment.
3. Frozen is a great soundtrack to the majestic views on the drive to Corte.
After spending a few days in the Piana area, we drove inland to Corte. Corte offers a lot for outdoor nature lovers without the beach. It reminded us a bit of Colorado and the drive from Piana to Corte was equally beautiful. One way we got through the roadtrip was by playing a lot of Frozen. I have to say some of those Frozen songs provide outstanding background music to the majestic beauty you see. My parents got to witness that during our trip to Slovenia ha!
5. Corsica feels like it was made for Jurassic Park, Avatar, etc. or were Jurassic Park, Avatar, etc. made for Corsica?! hmmm
Some of these views just inherently give me those Jurassic Park vibes, like I’m descending in the helicopter about to get a run for my money. I thought about cropping John Hammond’s face in here but it felt like too much work. Just cue the Jurassic Park soundtrack in your mind.
6. Speaking of run for your money, it’s always Hedgehog that will do that to you.
I’ll preface this story with saying there’s a stereotype that French children are incredibly well behaved. High expectations / parent paranoia when visiting that environment after hearing those rumors, I mean we have named our kids after wild animals in this blog LOL. Anyways, we found a pretty awesome radio station that played a variety of hits throughout the decades. One of these was “Born in the USA” by Bruce Springsteen.
Little did we know that Hedgehog would embed this song in her memory. Shortly after it played, we went into our first French grocery store. Grocery stores bring out the Dr. Jekyll /Mr. Hyde complex in our kids. She had a little kid trolley and and started running around the produce section. Her Nascar-like energy, unbrushed hair, and scream-singing “Born in the USA” (in her American-ish accent) while crashing into things totally did not do American tourism reputations any favors.
We got lots of looks. I practiced a Dr. Becky, Good Inside piece of advice which was, if I can’t know for certain what all these people are thinking of me, I might as well construct that story in my mind to my advantage (aka everyone was surprised by encountering such a free spirit that isn’t going to be constrained by what the world thinks of them haha). This moment felt like it truly belong on a sitcom…and was definitely not feeling so funny in the moment.
Then you see pictures like this and your heart can’t help but melt a little.
7. Corte has great scenery!
Corte has this Citadelle in it’s city that looks precariously perched on small rock. We didn’t go up there, but walked through windy, steep streets to get to this outlook that provided a gorgeous panorama view of the city. My mind loves to marvel over what the construction process of landmarks like these looked like.
8. Hot weather doesn’t always equate to feeling hot, hot, hot.
Towards the end of our trip we visited Bonifacio for a day. This is a town perched on a cliffside in the southern most portion of Corsica. Bonifacio’s cliffs felt a tad reminiscent of Picture Rocks in the UP if you’ve been there. And just the name Bonifacio made us reminisce about the amazing bakery we experienced in Venice. We did a couple miles of walking along the shoreline. The wind had such strong gusts, we could barely wear our sun hats without fear they’d blow off into the sea! It’s funny how hot days don’t feel so hot when the air has something to say about it. This shoreline was beautiful and unique to Corisca. In fact, every region had it’s unique beauty which made the trip so exciting because we did a loop around southern Corsica.
9. The wildlife in Corsica definitely won’t boar you.
I think these are pigs, but many wild pigs (and boars) roam Corsica. In fact, boar is a popular meat there! We had enough luck to run into them a few times on our drives and several times on grocery store shelves. This delighted the kids to see them (on the road), especially the piglets.
10. We experienced Lizards galore.
We always knew how loud we were from the constant scurrying on the trail. We saw dozens if not hundreds of lizards on our walks. This really motivated the kids during the hikes. However, so did the game of “something is happening to this train you are on and you can’t stop it, what are you going to do, you can only use three materials.” I don’t think we’ve come up with a name for this game yet, so that’s the best I can do. We played this game for hours and hours where someone picks a pending-accident scenario and you have to figure out how to MacGyver the situation. With Hedgehog we also played a game about all the different ways you can rescue babies off a railroad track and deliver them to their mommies, but you can’t use the same way twice and you have to do 20 babies quickly in a couple minutes, no time to think. Our kids have fascinating minds.
11. BONUS: Corsica has THE BEST BEACHES!
