SECRET CORSICA

Discover a forgotten fresco by Marc Chagall in a mountain village, a magnificent American villa where you can spend the night, the superb Corsican beach used as a setting for the D-Day Normandy landings in The Longest Day movie, remarkable paintings by a civilian First World War POW, a miniature village built with pebbles, golden hands embedded in the rock a two-hour walk into the mountains, a papier-mâché statue of the Virgin Mary, an unusual pool-table pocket bearing the image of Napoleon, an initiatory menhir in a chapel sacristy, a brick from the Holy Door of a church in Rome, a confessional cleverly hidden behind woodwork, the world’s largest citrus fruit collection, the painting of an eagle under a balcony, a Bonaparte family tree made from locks of hair, a sleepover in a lighthouse far from civilisation …

Corsica is far from the holiday clichés of beaches, mountains and gastronomy: its little-known treasures are only revealed to locals and travellers who are prepared to venture off the beaten track. An essential guide for those who thought they knew the island well or would like to discover its other aspects.