Transhumance

After the dispiriting cold and wet on the day of our arrival, we were very pleased to head out into the mountains yesterday to Cucuruzzu, a prehistoric site hidden in the oak forests about 20 miles away. To say that the views are spectacular sounds very lame. The basic geology of Corsica is a massive thrust granite creating the western side of the island with schists crashed into the eastern side, the whole clothed with dense velvety coverings of forests of pine and holm oak. These woods are full of birdsongs which fill the air, and the verges along the sides of the roads are covered in wildflowers. The sounds, colour and perfume of the whole landscape is ecstatically beautiful, and behind and underneath it all, are these immense valleys and mountains. 

The area where we are staying is characterised by colossal granite boulders which have been exposed by millions of years of erosion and then rounded off. These are much larger than elephants, sometimes as large as houses. They lie scattered about in a casual kind of way, and whole villages are built around them, beside them, or underneath them. For the very earliest inhabitants of this area they provided shelter, and the settlement of Cucuruzzu shows how attractive and valuable they have been to people for thousands and thousands of years. 

To see this extraordinary and remarkable place you must walk for a couple of kilometres through a shady forest of oaks and laurels, carefully treading between ankle-breaking rocks along your path. and finding your way across boggy streams which criss-cross the mountain sides. 

The origins of the settlement predate the invention of agriculture, and indeed here it would have been very difficult for anybody to sow any cereal crops because the land is so steep, the rocks cover nearly everything and the trees create such shade. But from Stone Age times, through the Bronze Age and right up into the mediaeval period, people choose to live up here. Huge blocks of stone created a natural citadel for them which they enhanced with walls, chambers, lookout points and rooms. The very few small areas of flat land cleared to make fields have clearly been used and cherished for thousands of years, and were farmed until very recently, but are now left as sunny open grassy spaces with wild flowers growing in them. It seems they were very first occupied by people who lived on the flat marshy lands to the south, near the coast, during the winter and only came up here with their beasts during the summer. 

The bellicose nature of history is never far from one’s mind in areas like this: one tribe against another, one chieftain holding his territory through force of arms, castles and strongholds, viewpoints and territory, a very masculine view of the world.  Castles and fortresses are physical representations of a particular kind of culture. So even up here where the use of Cucuruzzu changed quite a lot, I’m still reminded of other castles like Dover, Walmer, the castle at Ponferrada in Spain, and so on. I imagine a baleful countenance staring out into the gloom looking for enemies, and I couldn’t help remembering the remarkable archaeological site we visited in La Palma earlier this year with its strange female fertility rock carvings  - a very different tone in a very similar landscape. 

We got lunch in a cafe on the edge of the forest where a charming waitress from Thailand explained how many languages she had learnt to speak since coming to live in Corsica.

And in the afternoon we drove all the way down to the coast to Portevecchio, the swanky beautiful and historic port on the south coast of the island. There we saw an estate agents window with the unexpected but familiar name of Sotheby’s, displaying photos of a couple of dozen properties for sale, featuring swimming pools, shining marshlands, islands, clear water in the bays, and not a single price on display. As Andrew said,if you need to ask the price you can’t afford it. Climbing up into the Bastion of France, standing on the open battlements at the top, peering through a telescope to see a flock of flamingos in the distance as they waded around in the deserted salt-pans on the other side of the river, we read about the continuous history of this pivotal place from the Romans onwards. And we looked down on the little marina with its lines of yachts, and watched the ferry to Sardinia easing its way out. This is a very rich place.