Alta Rocca from village to village, a diversity of breathtaking landscapes

The “High Rock” lives up to its name. Straddling the Sartenais and the Gulf of Old Port, the southernmost massif of Corsica has all the advantages of a true mountain area: wooded slopes of cork oaks and laricio pines, winding roads, sharp granite reliefs. But also characteristic villages, each of which opens the doors to a particular world.

The hospital and the freshness of the forest

It’s not really a village, just a hamlet, but everyone knows the hospital. On the heights of Porto-Vecchio, going up towards the Alta Rocca, the very name of the “hospital” is synonymous with freshness and healthy air. For a long time it was here, at 850 m above sea level, that the inhabitants came in the summer to escape the heat and miasmas of the coast, where malaria raged until the 1950s. The disease has been eradicated but the mildness of the environment remains. Today the hospital is appreciated for the mirror of its artificial lake and the tranquility of its woods crossed by hiking trails. In addition to the Mare a Mare Sud, which passes here on its route on both sides of the Alta-Rocca, the Piscia di gallo walk, a few kilometers above the lake, joins a heavenly waterfall nestled between rock and woods.

• Know : the Piscia di gallo promenade is overcrowded in high season. You can stretch your legs on the Mare a Mare Sud trail from the Cartalavonu site.

Zonza, a window on Bavella

This city, whose current pronounced name sounds like the zoning of a mosquito, has (at least) two big advantages. Not only is it one of the most active and lively towns in Alta Rocca, but it also has prestigious neighbors: the spiers of Bavella. Visible from the pass of the same name, the spectacular rocky points, emblems of the island such as the citadel of Calvi and the cliffs of Bonifacio, pierce the sky with their seven granite spiers just 9 km from Zonza. In the village we meet visitors on walks, hikers – the GR20 passes masterfully between the needles – and sometimes even racing enthusiasts: on the Bavella road, the Viseo racecourse, the highest racing course in Europe, sometimes hosts trotting races . Once upon a time you could even see a king of Morocco there: in 1953, Mohammed V spent a few months of his forced exile in Corsica, in Zonza.

• Know : avoid the Col de Bavella in the height of the summer season.

Quenza, so close to Coscione

Quenza cultivates his tranquility. Just 7 kilometers from Zonza, the town is spared from the summer crowds and doesn’t complain about it. Here we take the time to have lunch under the chestnut trees, to produce our honey – the one in the surrounding area is famous – and to travel along the ugly road full of potholes that leads to the Coscione plateau. A dozen kilometers from Quenza, it is another world: isolated at around 1,500 meters above sea level, this rough territory crossed by the GR20 it is a mixture of granite reliefs, meadows where cattle and horses graze, streams and wells. Numerous hiking trails are signposted from the end of the road.

• Know : you will find almost no infrastructure on this part of the plateau. Bring water, food, good walking shoes and hiking gear.

Levie, witness to the island’s past

The Lady of Boniface is more than 8,500 years old… and you can meet her in Levie. In the heart of this quiet village, the Alta Rocca museum displays the bones of the oldest venerable on the island, discovered in 1972 near the large southern city. Other vestiges of the first hours of the island’s occupation emerge from the forest outside the village. The builders of the Capula and Cucuruzzu sites set foot on the soil of the Alta Rocca in the Bronze Age. The stone structures they built retain some of their mysteries, but archaeologists have found traces of occupation and agriculture there. The visit takes place along a path in the woods bordered by the Mare a Mare Sud, in a setting of undergrowth and mossy stones that awakens the imagination.

• Know : other archaeological sites await you around Sartène.

Sainte-Lucie-de-Tallano, in the land of olive oil

This is where part of the exterior of theCorsican investigation, the adaptation of Pétillon’s comic. This means that this village overlooking the Rizzanese valley has everything you would expect from a traditional village on the island’s heights: granite houses, alleys, a bell tower and a shaded square where the terraces resonate with the rocky Corsican tongue. In addition to all this, Santa-Lucia-di-Tallano, surrounded by olive groves, maintains a special relationship with this fruit which is among the most emblematic of the island. An oil mill, carefully restored and transformed into an eco-museum, recalls its importance in local history, and one of the rare olive growers who still owns an oil mill with a stone mill lives in the town.