Continuing a series of blog posts written for the hikingcorte blog way back in 2010. Some of the links are now unfortunately dead – you might try the wayback machine.
Before I had to decide whether I wanted to commit myself to an attempt to hike the western side of the Mare a Mare Nord from Corte to the west coast, I had two days in Corte to see the local sites and hike the local trails. Corte is a great base for walking trips, and based on my research – particularly the experience of these American guys, who walked the whole of the Nord in summer some years ago; these guys from the UK who give good summaries of the hikes they did in Calvi and Corte as part of an organised walking holiday; and corsica.forhikers.com, which contains lots of useful bits of information (albeit with much more geared towards the GR20) – I could happily spend a week there, walking a different route every day and not getting bored. Including short trips on the Michelline train to, for example, Vizzavona, I came up with a good number of tempting places to explore over these two days.
- The Restonica gorge and Lac de Melo/Lac de Capitello. Some eerie wonderful pictures of the deep lakes here, high in the mountains and surrounded by rock walls and clouds, meant this was top of my list. The gorge runs right up the Restonica valley, starting only a few kms outside of Corte, and makes an interesting, and not too challenging, walk in itself. It is however a good 15 km along an incredibly tightly winding road (c’est un slalom, as my taxi driver described it) from Corte to the start of the ascent to the lakes at the Berguries de Grotelle. You would have to get up very early in the morning to walk there and back in one day! In the summer there’s apparently a regular shuttle bus (and the whole place is apparently jammed with sightseers). In the spring a realistic option is to take a taxi up to the burgeries, where there’s a little car park and a lovely cafe, climb up to see the lakes, and then stroll back to Corte in the afternoon.
- The Tavignano gorge is, if anything, even more spectacular. Since I was planning to follow the gorge up to the refuge at Sega as I walked west along the Nord later on, I could leave this for now. If, however, you’re not planning to include it in a longer walk, I would definitely recommend it as simultaneously jaw-dropping and not overly challenging. The PNRC guide signs (which are usually dead accurate) say Corte-Sega (1100 m) is a six hour walk, I did it at what I thought was a leisurly pace (taking lots of photographs) in four, so I’d say it would easily be possible to walk there and back in summer (and if this plan didn’t work out you could always stay overnight at the refuge).
- East of Corte. Here is a nice description of a hike to Mt Tomboni and the village of Santa Lucia di Mercoriu, East of Corte. I could find very little other information about walks east of Corte away from the Mare e Mare Nord (and not too much info on that). Although the biggest mountains and ultimately the watershed rise up to the West of Corte, from my hotel window looking East I thought I could identify the peak of Mt Tomboni (1062m) and it certainly looked rather intimidating. Certainly this looks like it would be entertaining and worthwhile, although a map is probably essential.
- The Arch of Corte. As mentioned here, the strange free-standing granite arch in the mountains to the North West of Corte is a bit of a local landmark, and does appear on many postcards in town. Despite this, and despite the fact there is a well-marked (though not well signposted) trail leading up to the arch from the start of the Tavignano valley trail, I could find precious little information on this hike (my Rough guide doesn’t even mention it). The map indicates the arch is about 4 km as the crow flies, and around 6km on the trail, from Corte. Despite this diminuitive distance, if you plan to do this walk be prepared for a stiff climb up to the arch at 1452 m, a altitude gain of over a kilometer. Even in April I needed lots of water and it took me rather longer than I expected. You can also make the walk a circular one by continuing North to the berguries de Padule (1680 m) and looping back round to Corte through the Forêt de Forca. More on this below…
- Walks from Vizzavona. You can easily (ahem) catch the Micheline train in Corte and ride it a few stops South to reach the GR20 hiker hub of Vizzavona. From here there are a number of quite popular hikes which I found included in the rough guide. The walk to the Cascade des Anglais is supposed to be laid-back and pleasant, although apparently I get the feeling you exactly be alone in summer. The Cascades (1092 m but a climb of less than 150 m from Vizzavona) lie in a forest about 3km South West of Vizzavona, along a strangly easy section of the GR20. You can also walk to the Punta di Zarpi via Bocca Palmenta (1657 m) along the Eastern direction of the GR20. Just don’t miss the train back to Corte or hitchhiking will be your only option…
- Mountain climbing. Of course, many people come to Corsica to tackle the big peaks. Some of those easily accessible from Corte include Monte Rotondo (2622 m and Corsica’s second highest mountain) which rises spikily on the other side of the restonica gorge from the Melu and Capitellu lakes and Monte d’Oro at 2380 m, close to Vizzavona. While the thought of attempting these did cross my mind as I was planning my trip, one look at the peaks when I arrived put my Edmund Hilary fantasies to rest. In April 2010 around Corte, the snow line started remarkably consitently at around 1500 m, and steep ascents above this altitude would be extremely perilous without very specialised equipment, proper mountaineering knowhow and top fitness. I certainly didn’t have any of these and made it very clear to the somewhat concerned locals asking me whether I was following the GR20 trail (which actively seeks these climbs) that I was staying off the high peaks. Even if you do know what you are doing, I would guess that attempting these ascents in early Spring would still contain a significant element of risk, and since it is not uncommon for hikers and climbers to be killed in Corsica by bad weather even during the summer, this is something you wouldn’t undertake lightly.
Although I wasn’t initially sure how easy it would be to book a taxi to take me up the Restonica gorge for the Melo/Capitello walks, I was certain I couldn’t visit Corte and not see the Restonica. I would pass through the Tavignano on my way to Sega, so that was taken care of. Because a trip up the Restonica required some planning with booking the taxi, I decided to leave it until the second day. For my first day I wanted something relatively simple to ease me back into walking, and decided against taking any public transport (I didn’t want to get stranded on my first day of walking). Based on some reasoning that was clear to me at the time I decided that a walk to the Arch would be entertaining and easier than a walk to Tomboni. Although the easy part did not exactly turn out to be the case, I’m still very glad I decided to visit the Arch.