July 15, 2022
We took a two hour drive across the island to the hillside town of Sartene. It dates back to medieval times and granite buildings from the early 1500s still line some of its streets. Apparently, the town was a frequent target for pirates. One of the most infamous attacks happened in 1583 when pirates from Algiers took aways 400 of the town’s citizens. Today it is a sleepy town and on a hot day there was not much going on in its ancient streets.
After lunch in the town square and a mandatory gelato from a little mobile mint green gelato stand, we started to explore its narrow streets. However, it wasn’t long before our group decided that on such a scorching day, a better course of action would be to head to the beach. So we drove down the stunning coastline and headed toward Plage de Rondinara.
Arriving in the late afternoon, we found Rondinara to be the most beautiful beach that we had come across so far in Corsica. It is a perfect horseshoe shape with only a narrow gap to the open ocean. Like all of the Corsican beaches that we visited, it also had a great beachside restaurant, so as the sun went down we enjoyed a beautiful meal and a couple of drinks before setting out on the winding road back to our AirBnB.
Mal and Lauren 