France
Girolata
A hamlet with no road — reached by boat or mule track, under a Genoese tower.
No road reaches Girolata, on French Corsica's western shore. The hamlet appears round a headland — a few dozen buildings, a Genoese watchtower, a single beach — reached by boat from Porto or Calvi or by a couple of hours on the mule track through the maquis from the Col de la Croix. It is a place so removed from infrastructure that the menu at lunch depends on what the sea provided that morning.
Girolata is a hamlet on the Gulf of Girolata, next to the Scandola reserve on Corsica's west coast, and among the island's emblematic sights precisely because there is so little of it: a small village in a sheltered position that is only accessible by boat — departures from Calvi and Porto — or on foot, down the old track from the pass, hot and aromatic through the scrub, that the mules and the postman still use. The Genoese tower on its rock guarded the bay from the sixteenth century; the water below it is protected by the reserve next door and is clear to the bottom. The day boats come and go and the handful of restaurants along the shore grill the catch. Everything here — boat, bed, dinner — is paid for and worth it; there is no cash machine and no signal to speak of.
Solo
The mule track through the maquis — aromatic, hot, dropping to a hamlet with no road, no signal and no agenda — is a walk into deliberate simplicity. The fish at the shore restaurant tastes of the isolation.
Couple
Come by boat and swim in the bay, eat grilled fish at the water's edge, walk up to the Genoese tower. Girolata strips a day to its elements — water, food, warmth, company — and proves they are enough.
- No road reaches the hamlet — access is by boat from Porto or Calvi, or a couple of hours on the mule track through the maquis.
- A few dozen buildings share a single beach, a tiny harbour and a Genoese watchtower — that is the infrastructure.
- The Scandola reserve next door means the bay is protected — the water is clear to the bottom, and the fish are there to prove it.
- Lunch at the shore is fish caught that morning — the menu is whatever the sea provided.
The morning's fish grilled at a table on the shore, the boat that caught it moored a few metres away.
A cold glass of Corsican white from the hills behind Calvi, with brocciu and a spoon of fig jam to finish.
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