Corsica

People mostly see its beaches, and they are wrong to. Bonifacio sits on a limestone cliff hollowed out by the sea, an unexpected white mark on an island where granite dominates in the south and schist in the north. Porto-Vecchio opens onto the southern gulfs and onto sands photographed for fifty years. Calvi looks over the Balagne, its olive villages and baroque churches. But the interior is worth the detour as much as the coast: the Restonica gorges, the Niolu, and the GR 20, which crosses the island north to south in some fifteen demanding stages. Distances are deceptive: fifty kilometres of mountain road easily takes two hours.