You don't often come across fish on a walking holiday, except perhaps as a succulent plateful at the end of a hard day on the hills, but the ones I met at Calvi were looking at me face to face. This was the easy part of the holiday, a trip on an antique train to Orso Longo followed by a gentle stroll back along the coast with lunch in a beachside café followed by a swim among the fish that thronged the rocks.


Tower on the coast

Ancient watchtowers, surrounded by a mass of golden yellow flowers, looked out over a dark blue sea, while the sun beat down remorselessly with reflections shimmering in the heat. Somehow this reminded me of the desert, which wasn't far wrong really, as the crowd of bronzed athletic young men lazing on the beach turned out to be members of the French Foreign Legion.


French Foreign Legion at Calvi

Corsica has a reputation for toughness. After all the most strenuous and demanding of all the famous French walking routes, the GR20, with its mountain huts and airy scrambles along rocky ridges, can be found here. But we weren't following the way the hard men go, ours was more relaxing with a return every night to an hotel close to Calvi's magnificent Citadelle towering over the harbour.

Citadelle and Harbour, Calvi

Most people know the tale of Nelson clapping the telescope to his blind eye and declaring "I see no ships", but it was here, during the Siege of Calvi in 1794, that he lost that eye when struck by stone splinters thrown up by a cannonball. There were certainly plenty of ships though, for the harbour was full of them and we strolled along the quayside past ferries, fishing boats, diving boats and a host of multi-million pound yachts getting ready for Calvi's round the island race.

la Revellata cliffs near Calvi

Across the wide bay the distant mountains beckoned, but walks at Calvi were mostly through villages where cherry trees hung heavy with fruit and we stopped in the cool of cafes like Sant Antonino where lemonade was made on the spot from freshly squeezed lemons.

Friends made on holiday often turn out to come from far away, but it was a surprise to find one lived just round the corner from us and Anne had even babysat there. Another couple lived only a few miles from us and, when one young lady happened to mention fell running, it turned out she ran regularly with a friend of mine.

Running was definitely out though when we moved to the university town of Corte.


Belvedere above Corte

Set in the mountains we expected to find cool mountain breezes, but the heat continued as we explored tree-lined gorges set beneath towering peaks, while lizards scurried beneath our feet. Corte is a strange mixture, with busy cafes set round a shady square dominated by a statues of Pascal Paoli, the leader of Corsica's 18^th century independence, while the care-worn buildings were a reminder that in the 1960's the island lost half its population through emigration.

Pigna, one of the Corsican villages

"Tomorrow", said our guide, "I've planned a villages walk". Our faces fell. Independence reared its head. We come on these holidays for the company of other walkers, but the Arche de Corte could not be missed. True it's practically straight up, an unrelenting climb of four thousand feet, but from every postcard stand the images of this huge rocky arch tempted us.

Mountains and pine trees high above Corte

An early start was called for and, as we climbed away from the town up a hillside covered in yellow flowering maquis, I was glad to have invested in a set of walking maps. Within minutes three locals passed us going the opposite way. Obviously our 8.30a.m. start was pretty late by their standards. "You've got plenty of water haven't you?" enquired one and, with shoulders drooping under the weight of half a gallon of the stuff, we felt well prepared. It wasn't alas enough. Perhaps it was thirst, for when we reached the ridge we failed completely to find the arch. The surroundings were superb with wild goats, pine trees, stupendous drops and gleaming jagged mountains. But no arch.

And will we go back? Well, I rather like the heat and then there's that rocky arch to find. It must be up there somewhere.

This article was first published in the Manchester Evening News
Ramblers Holidays