Anyone been to Corsica?

[yoyo]

We have set ourselves the target of organising our holiday this week and are rather taken with Corsica. We would be going at the end of July with 3 children (10, 7 and 3).

We are thinking of one week, in a villa/cottage and hiring a car.

Has anyone any advice, tips, suggestions?

Not much practical help as I went pre children. However Corsica is fantastic, I am desperate to go back and regret not booking our honeymoon there.

Have friends who have been 2 or 3 times with chldren & love it. Have a look at Simply Travel as they have some self catering with child care.

Just go, it's beautiful.

Lapsedrunner - thanks for that. I will check out Simply Travel tonight and hopefully get something sorted by tomorrow night. It is the first time that I have felt really excited about a holiday in ages. Which part did you visit?

Let me know as well please - thinking of going later in year!

its espensieve isnt it
veyr nicewent heer years ago near calvi

Corsica... now that brings back memories.

Never been, but could draw you a map of the island, label the key ports, the mountain (including height of highest point!) and rivers. All from memory learned for my GCSEs 11 years ago!

Will watch thread with interest!

Just realised that the holiday I was looking at was quoted as price per person - will be about £5k for one week for 5 of us. Please agree that this is very expensive!! Am wandering the web at the moment but becoming rather downhearted - what is a fair price for a family of five? Don't want super-economy (like a bit of luxury) but I am so out of touch.

Messagedeleted - are you Cod? Just a guess from the typing.

Bugger. Really, really wanted this holiday. Back looking at French gites on Chez Nous.

yoyo-I have been looking at going to Corsica for the last 20 years! but it has ALWAYS been sooooooooo expensive and when you get there a coffee will probably be 10 quid!

Hope you have a fab holiday where ever you go.

DH and I went to Corsica in 2004 and just loved it! it's a beautiful island, quite mountainous in parts and the best thing is that it's (as yet) very unspoilt. If you like walking you'll love Corsica. It has some gorgeous areas for walking. Not sure whether it has a great deal on offer for very children though. More of an adult's destination perhaps.

It wasn't cheap, but we found going independantly was the best way. We flew Easyjet to Marseille then Air France to Bastia.

We stayed Here and Here . You may prefer a coastal site, if you're taking young children with you.

We went in sept to and stayed with simply travel but i think that the accomdation is now with crystal active and is carpiccilo (spelling a bit dodgy!)

Our DD was car sick as the mountain roads are a bit windy (want to say wind-ey not windy (breezy!!))

We went last week in season and the child care was empty so DD was only with 3 others.

overall a thumbs up from us!

You have to have a car (we didn't, and got very bored and stuck) but make sure you make a train journey through the mountainous interior - fantastic views that can't all be accessed by road.

We stayed in a cold damp basement so all in all not a great break for us - oh and it rained all the time - but the place is beautiful and I'm sure it's possible to have a great holiday there.

We went to Calvi and the mountains (Zicavu) for our honeymoon, love the place. So beautiful.
Corsican Places were wonderful yoyo, and cheaper than Simply Travel. They have a lot of places in the Balagna (NW costal and inland mountain valleys, very unspoilt).
It will be HOT by the sea in July though, and stormy in the mountains.
I think Hester is trying to keep it all to herself - how did you find a damp basement miss?
Although it is more expensive than mainland France IMO it is the pick of the mediterranean - greener and less built-up than Sardinia, less scary than Sicily , and so atmospheric. See if you can find the money yoyo - and your children are old enough to appreciate the trains (esp. Il Trinichello from Calvi to L'Ile Rousse) and the glorious food.

I always think Marina has done Corsica best.

We did the Simply Travel/Cappicciolo thing and it was entirely wrong for us - stupidly expensive & completely standard-issue-beach-centred, which for a family that likes peace and interesting food and culture and can't be doing with competitive bikini-wearing was just grim. But! if you have sporty gregarious children you'd feel completely different about it, I think. And when we drove inland we saw the Corsica we should have gone to (ie, Marina's).

we went a few years ago with Corsican places and had a self catering apartment which was actually a bungalow on a complex with about 10 others round a shared swimming pool. It was about 10 mins walk from Calvi and 2 mins walk from the beach. We had a lovely time and I don't recall the basic holiday as desperately expensive - it wasn't a particularly luxurious bungalow but was clean and had all we needed. I'd go back to Corsica - it was lovely.

I went pre-dd with a mate and had an amazing time. It was in June though so we avoided the hoardes of tourists in July/August. But then everywhere is going to be busy at that time of year. We flew to Bastia, then hired a car and drove pretty much all round the coast, and flew back from Ajaccio. Would love to go back and discover the interior - it's supposed to be amazing too. And as long as you're not french the Corsicans are very welcoming too.

Progress of sorts has been made. We found a beautiful villa in Bonifacio (yes I know, extreme South and beach-centred but believe me, there is not a huge deal to choose from at the moment). All set to phone and book tomorrow when we came upon a detail which said it is the windiest point in Corsica - 250 days plus of wind per year! Now I am Welsh and a bit of a breeze doesn't bother me but this seems excessive. The thought of that lovely white sand flying about! Anyway DH has had enough and given up but there is another company that have a fair few properties but everything would have to be booked separately. Will continue the search tomorrow.

Marina - your honeymoon sounds lovely and I will be checking out places near Calvi tomorrow. I may need to pick your brains before booking if you are around and don't mind.

Bink - oh God, competitive bikini wearing! Gulp. Not my thing at all. Don't have extremely sporty children either. What we need - nice but more importantly clean villa, private pool (high wobble factor), bit of a beach nearby, village to explore, hills within reach (Welsh thing again), good food and wine, sun but not scorching and preferably no rain (Welsh thing again!). Now I do seem fussy.

And we are probably taking our girls out of school for a week. I will now crawl away and hide as I know most people are dead against this.

Thanks to everyone for your responses.

Marina, we booked an apartment with a VERY misleading photo! It was indeed a damp basement - nay, a cellar - with ceilings about three feet high and almost no natural daylight.

Funny thing is that I was complaining about this particular holiday, years later, to a work colleague, and it turned out that she too had been to stay in this same hovel!

Maisons Bervily (I think that's the ones) on the outskirts of Calvi always looked nice for families (we stayed in a bijou, thick-walled but sunny studio in the Citadelle!) yoyo. I cannot recommend Corsican Places highly enough, they are widely thought to be the best of the specialist operators on the island and have a good range of properties. Most of their stuff is Corsican-owned which tends to go down well if you need help from the neighbours, Corsicans have strong views about non-resident, non-Corsican property owners!
The lovely thing about Calvi is that because of the Ste Catherine "airport" on the outskirts, you can do a holiday there without needing to hire a car for the duration. However, to see the best of this glorious place I'd recommend car hire for some of the time!
What I personally would avoid, is any of the villas on the agreates beaches N of Calvi round the coast. The beaches are wild and near-deserted, but it's a bit empty of anything else and the children might find it boring after a while.
But all of the island has its own charms. Bonifacio is stunningly set and good for day trips to Sardinia, but you are a LONG way from anywhere else of interest IMO. And they are not wrong about that wind, although it can strike anywhere else on Corsica - it is their version of the mistral.
St Florent and the Cap Corse in the North is where a lot of the wine is produced and is quite quiet - but a bit of a bumpy transfer from Bastia. St Florent looks absolutely idyllic - a yachtsmans' port. You are well placed to head inland from there to stunning spots like the Gorges de Spelloncato and Corte, Corsica's "real" university town and the centre of Corsican nationalism.
Ajaccio in the SW is a charming, hectic, mediterranean city near a lot of popular resorts and beaches. Administrative centre and therefore plenty of nice, more formal restaurants. Main airport for the island too.
Tbh I'd just ring Corsican Places and get their advice. I think their property portfolio will have changed since our time (married ten years this year ).
Goodness I do go on

I wonder if Mrs Wobble was at Maisons Bervily...

DH and I went to Corsica about 10 years ago - thought the place was beautful!

We stayed here: Hotel Roc e Fiore which was lovely.

We have booked a holiday in Corsica!! We have taken all your advice on board and have booked a villa near Lumio. We have also upgraded the car as we hope to see as much of the different sides of Corsica that we can in a week. We have also got a pool as the children love swimming but I get a bit twitchy on the beach with the little one. I think we might just be in time for the wine festival too (and maybe the guitar festival).

Marina - we went with Corsican Places in the end. Time to start saving!

that is a good location for exploring
Warning - no holiday in France ever again will quite match the Ile de Beaute.
Frank Muir was one of many Brits who got hooked and ended up there more or less permanently.
Our landlady in Zicavu and all of the CP reps were Brits similarly afflicted

Oh Marina - I've just read this through, started looking through Corsican Places (gasped at the cost, my 2 and 3 year olds will only get a £15 discount off £415 each!!!).

Then I read your last post and in excitement Googled 'Ile de Beaute'. Where can it be?

For anyone else with one eye on the curling, it is Corsica

Gem13 - I think Marina is referring to the whole island. It might be worth giving them a ring as we got an extra discount over the phone today. We are taking ours out of school though as there is no way we could afford it otherwise.

Marina - - we have just booked a villa for the end of July in Gurgarzu, near Bonifacio... now I'm worried! Is it REALLY windy?

No, not all the time callmemadam, it wouldn't be the deservedly popular corner it is if it were unbearable I think it just cops it more often than some other parts of the island
We had one day in a fortnight...it was a hot wind, so although the beaches were a bit of a sandblast experience, it wasn't like you couldn't go out or anything.