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Think of Corsica, and you might picture the glitzy marina of Porto-Cervo, with the garish megayachts and designer boutiques that have earned it a reputation as the French island’s very own Saint-Tropez. Or the glamorous five-star hotels clustered around the port town of Calvi in the northwest—and, perhaps, its four-mile beach, a crescent of powdery white sand with a historic citadel perched on a rocky outcrop at the end. Or, if you’ve visited before, it might be the scent of the maquis that springs to mind: the herbaceous perfume of the island’s scrubland—honeysuckle, lavender, myrtle, and mint—that clings to the salt air. As the island’s most famous son, Napoleon Bonaparte, who was born and raised in the then-sleepy fishing town of Ajaccio, once said of the place: “Everything there was better, even the smell of the ground. I would know it with my eyes closed.”
When I visited in early October, I actually didn’t have much of a picture in mind. A few months earlier, I read The Bombshell, a novel set in 1990s Corsica that made the place sound like a kind of fever dream; newly determined to visit, I reasoned that perhaps, after a week there, I would feel the same way about it that Napoleon once did. While I’d visited Corsica once before as a teenager, my memories of it were a little hazy, and in truth, I wasn’t sure what to expect at all.
But I had heard wonderful things about the corner of the island I was heading to: the stretch of coastline that extends along Corsica’s southernmost tip, from the idyllic medieval haute-ville of Bonifacio, which perilously perched on the edge of a dramatic limestone cliff, to the shallow turquoise waters of Piantarella Bay, whose picture-postcard beaches could be mistaken for those of a Caribbean island.
What I had also heard, however, was that this particular region was fiercely guarded by locals and (predominantly French) long-time holidaygoers alike, the majority of whom descend on the area every summer for at least a month from Paris or one of the other major Gallic cities. One particular phrase had been relayed to be in hushed tones by more than one person, in fact: “It’s one of France’s best-kept secrets.”
I didn’t necessarily want to blow up said holidaygoers’ spot, but I did want to find out more. So I headed with a couple of friends to Domaine de Spérone, a sprawling, 120-hectare private estate of holiday homes, restaurants, and a world-class golf course, with the intention of discovering what all the fuss was about. And to do so, I also made sure to enlist the help from a team that I could rely on to be truly in the know: in this case, Le Collectionist, the design-forward villa rental platform known for its rigorous selection process—only around 3% of houses inspected by their team are accepted into the collection—as well as its emphasis on services for the genuinely curious traveller, such as a dedicated concierge for each booking that helps craft a personalized itinerary.
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