Town that are a little more than hamlets and hamlets that are important like cities, small sentinels guarding themselves from everyone. The history since the days of old brought to the island predatory invaders from the sea avid of land and strategic ports, the corse people soon learned to defend themselves closing their cities behind fortified walls.
Corsica, Bastia |
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Facing the Levant, guarding the Tuscan strait, Italian city by its origins, Bastia was founded by the Genoese that built the Citadel, the “Bastiglia”, to defend the town from the assaults of the enemies.
Try to walk and to get lost in the alleys of the old quarter Terra Vecchia founded in 1380, with its cracked houses and its balconies of wrought iron, reach the Citadel and the Romieu Garden then go down to the old Harbour where the church of San Giovanni, with its twin belfry, comes out from behind the houses of the harbour, below the mountain of Cardu. In the Terra Nova quarter the Saint-Nicolas Square faces the sea with the Mediterranean colours and scents.
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Corsica, Cap Corse
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From Bastia to Saint Florent a coastal road follows the tortured coast of
Cap Corse. called also the “finger”, Cap Corse is a superb promontory so different from the rest of the island that can be defined an isle in the island. It stretches away towards the Gulf of Genoa, 40 kilometres long and about 15 km wide, a platform for picturesque villages and succession of golden beaches, vertiginous drops and small marinas built nowadays on the waterfront in the wake of the old villages. In the slopes of the mountains small villages cling on watching over all around. A multitude of churches, convents, and watchtowers, settled strategically to avert the invasions.
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Corsica, Capo Corso: Nonza
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After the eastern coast with its smooth relief and valleys opened onto the Tyrrhenian Sea, at the end of the western slope of the “finger” with its villages perched on imposing rocky peaks we arrive at
Nonza. A small striking village overhanging the sea at 150 m, Nonza offers one of the most spectacular sight of Corsica. From the rock the view is fascinating: the blue of the Mediterranean sea contrast with the black beach of scist gravel. Its square and green tower dominates the houses, that managed to keep beyond the times the aspect of their past, and the gardens perched on the black cliff overhanging the sea. Narrow alleys are embedded between houses with grey slate roofs and stone portals and walls painted with yellow, green ochre pastel colours that are characteristics of the Ligurian coastal towns.
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