Hello everyone! We recently had our family holiday on the beautiful island of Corsica. It's part of France (although the Corsicans would like to be independent!) and the birthplace of Napolean Bonaparte. Although French is the official language, there is also a Corsican language which is a little like Italian. All road signs are in both languages and many were shot with bullet holes through the French version! There have been some reports in the past of Corsicans being aggressive towards visitors - especially the French (we have a French car!) but evryone we met was very friendly and welcoming and we felt perfectly safe. Talking to Corsicans, they realise that they rely on tourism for their economy so have done much to dispel this unfriendly image.

The Corsicans are a proud people - one man told us, hand on his heart, that during WW2, not a single Jewish or Turkish person was taken from the island by the occupying Germans - the Corsicans hid them all in the mountains and protected them.

The island is very wild and rugged with beautiful mountains and a different but beautiful view around every bend. The east coast, where we stayed is a flat plain with long, sandy beaches and the west coast has lots of rocky coves as the mountains have their 'feet in the sea' as the French say (pieds dans le mer). Many of these coves are only accessible by boat.

Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia

The island is 183 kilometres (114 mi) long at longest, 83 kilometres (52 mi) wide at widest, has 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) of coastline, more than 200 beaches, and is very mountainous, with Monte Cinto as the highest peak at 2,706 metres (8,880 ft) and 20 other summits of more than 2,000 metres (6,600 ft). Mountains comprise two-thirds of the island, forming a single chain. Forest comprises 20% of the island. Approximately 3,500 km2 (1,400 sq mi) of the total surface area of 8,680 km2 (3,350 sq mi) are dedicated to nature reserves (Parc Naturel Régional de Corse), mainly in the interior.

And here's a link if you'd like to know more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corsica

Hope you enjoy the pics! :D

Livestock wanders free through the mountains although the locals reputedly know who belongs to who! Since a law was introduced that any damage done to cars would be at the animal's owner's expense, all have had their identifying ear tags removed!

Some mountain scenes

Beautiful!
Love the goat on the car! lol

Here's some family shots - hope you don't mind! :D

Joey aged 7 snorkelled on his own, holding DH's hand. I took Lily (not yet 5) on my back and she looked into the water over my shoulder. She shouted 'Hello fishies!' through her tube; my two little water babies!

more shots

last ones

The people pulled away slowly and he just jumped off!

Awesome! Just awesome and you got some cute water babies there! :)

Oh how pretty thanks for sharing.