Corsica: The ultimate green land

July 30, 12:38 PMItaly Culture & Travel ExaminerLucia Mauro

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Corsica's Alta Rocca in Bavello.

An invitation from friends to visit them during their summer holiday in Corsica conjured two images in my mind: Napoleon's birthplace and a strong separatist movement. But once on this pristine green island - technically a province of France yet one with long ties to Italy - I was overcome by the untouched beauty of my peaceful natural surroundings. With agriculture, olive-oil production and fishing its main industries, Corsica is generally free of pollution. As I breathed the pure air and watched cows rest in fields set against mountains and quaint granite houses, I felt like I was in the land that time forgot...or at least suspended in a pastoral landscape painting somewhere between the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment.

Corsican donkey near Propriano.

The unassuming natural splendor of the fourth largest island in the Mediterranean made me temporarily forget its complex history - still visible in nationalistic graffiti and its ongoing fight for independence from France. In fact, while driving along Corsica's perpetually curving roads, I noticed that many signs had the town's French name scratched out so that only the Corsican version was visible. But, overall, I found the atmosphere cordial and non-threatening. And once I pored over the island's layered back story of conquest, revolution and political ping-pong, I realized why independence would be such a highly prized commodity here.

Bonifacio, Corsica.

I arrived in the southern Corsican town of Bonifacio via a 50-minute ferry from the port of Santa Teresa di Gallura in Sardinia. The fortified and sweepingly elevated city, with its snaking medieval walls and castle turrets, provides visitors with an impressive welcome. Yachts and sailboats lined the elegant dock bordered by canopied cafes, where lounge singers crooned to a global clientele seated on plush furniture and sipping sparkling wine. Yet Bonifacio also has an approachable charm - more akin to Alghero, Sardinia than St. Tropez. The winding streets, where children kicked around soccer balls inside the peeling cloisters of medieval churches, led to inviting shops and casual restaurants.

In Bonifacio, one either ascends or descends. Through an archway in one suspended section, I thought I saw a series of flowing rivers. The optical illusion turned out to be a strange grouping of shaved mountains. But a dramatic blue-green sea brushed against endless wind-sculpted rock formations below.

All around me, Corsican flags - with the symbol of a blindfolded Moor - flapped in the wind, together with T-shirts, hats, aprons and tablecloths all sporting the same curious insignia. Interestingly, the Italian island of Sardinia, just below Corsica and also west of mainland Italy, has a similar flag - but four Moors replace Corsica's one. Though the stories vary, the Moor-bedecked flags supposedly represent the Aragonese victory over the Moors' long-ago interest in occupying both islands.

And that brings me to Corsica's fascinating history. French may be its official language, and it is considered a region of France. But many people speak Corsican, a language of Latin origins shaped over time by the Republics of Pisa and Genoa. The latter Italian shipping power controlled Corsica for 600 years until the French acquired it under the Treaty of Versailles in 1768.

Yet across Corsica, statues of Enlightenment-era statesman Pasquale Paoli (1725-1807) stand as potent symbols of the island's fiercely independent spirit. In 1755, Paoli (who also later endured two separate exiles to England and had a contentious relationship with native son Napoleon Bonaparte) became the first president of the independent Corsican Republic - wrested from the Republic of Genoa. He penned a groundbreaking constitution that influenced his friend Thomas Jefferson during the writing of the U.S. Constitution. Corsica's constitution implemented universal suffrage for men and women. Paoli established more democratic administrative and judicial systems, as well as a military.

Despite these strengths and ongoing skirmishes to keep the Genovese at bay, Corsica officially became a French territory only 13 years after Paoli's reforms.

But Corsica certainly endured raids and takeovers since its prehistoric origins. The Vandals seized the island from the Roman Empire in 469 AD before being recovered by the Byzantine Empire in 534 AD. Though the Lombards grabbed hold in 725 AD, Charlemagne cleared them out by 774 AD and handed the island over to the Papacy. And while the Moors vied for Corsica in 806 AD, 20 years later, the Papacy brought in Tuscany (a significant part of the Holy Roman Empire) to defend it. Hence, Bonifacio was founded in 828 AD as a fortress. It's named after Boniface II of Tuscany, who led a campaign against the Saracens and proceeded to fortify his namesake city.

The history can be daunting, but it lends Corsica a richness of character beyond its softly spectacular natural beauty.

I was staying in a remote enclave (near a blissfully empty beach) called Abbartello - not far from the attractive fishing and sailing port town of Propriano, on the southwest side of the island, sheltered by the Gulf of Valinco. Another fishing village, Porto Pollo, can be accessed by walking along the unspoiled beach scattered with driftwood. How delightful to encounter one of Corsica's famed donkeys strolling along the narrow winding road to Abbartello from Bonifacio. He was trailed by a strutting border collie - a children's book come to life. Then I was convinced that the forest behind the house was an enchanted one. Every once in a while, two pregnant donkeys (a high-strung brown one and the other mellow and gray-striped) made an appearance. Could they have been modern manifestations of Shakespeare's Bottom?

But more fantastical wonders awaited. My friends and I drove up to the thickly forested Bavello area, where the imposing and windswept Alta Rocca stands. These majestic mountains reminded me of North America's Rocky Mountains yet, from a distance, one section displayed scary, jagged points that should have qualified it as another Devil's Peak. All around, in addition to a grotto/shrine to the Virgin Mary, pine trees (whose tops were leveled like a buzz cut) magnified the humbling grandeur of Alta Rocca.

From Alta Rocca, we stopped in the scenic mountain town of Zonza, where many shops sold fresh wild boar sausage, honey, olive oil and fresh goat and sheep's milk cheeses. In another tiny and picturesque town, Santa Lucia di Tallano -- dotted with Corsica's characteristic rounded-granite stone houses -- we enjoyed a frothy red-colored Monaco drink (beer mixed with grenadine) at a café where big dogs wove in and around our legs as they tried to crawl under the table. Corsica, by the way, is a dog lover's dream. As in mainland France, these charismatic canines saunter around inside the restaurants and shops.

But cats seemed to gravitate to the multilevel Sartene, where they casually roamed among the high-altitude churchyards, gorge-facing plazas and a substantial prehistory museum. The nearby town of Omertu has a sleepy feel and proudly advertises its historic olive-oil mills. Napoleonphiles make pilgrimages to the historic city of Ajaccio to visit his birth home and Roman Emperor-clad statue, together with stunning cathedrals and vistas.

Every year on June 21, France declares a National Day of Music. I was fortunate to be in Corsica at this time and spent an idyllic evening strolling through Propriano and listening to a diverse range of music. Remarkably, walking from street to street felt like I was changing radio stations or shuffling my iPod. My favorites included the impassioned gypsy singers and a group of elderly men singing Corsican folk songs in and around the outdoor cafes. A Portuguese folkloric dance troupe performed on a barge in the port. We enjoyed a Croque Monsieur while listening to a laidback young band, whose lead singer looked like actor Vince Vaughn but sounded like Dave Matthews. I observed the casual joie de vivre around me. It wasn't the spectacularly disordered vivacity of Italy, but one that was reserved and interior - yet equally passionate.

The night before I left, I looked out at the lush vegetation, mountains and ocean before me from the house's terrace. At precisely 9:30 p.m. (as in all previous nights), a small flock of birds darted across the pink-and-orange-streaked sky. The calm and quiet were disarming. I realized that, in many ways, the Corsicans - though staunchly committed to their independence - enjoy a special kind of freedom: the freedom to coexist peacefully with nature in one of the few unspoiled places left in this world.

Postscript: On July 26, a portion of southern Corsica's forests were destroyed by wildfires, allegedly set by three men. Heat and high winds contributed to the fire's spread. But the wildfires have since been brought under control. In fact, the island has a substantial sector dedicated to wildfire control and regularly conducts rescue exercises, which I personally witnessed.

END