Experience the best of Ajaccio

Ajaccio faces south-west across a wide gulf on Corsica's west coast, with the island's mountains rising behind. Napoleon Bonaparte was born here in 1769, and the family's house, the Maison Bonaparte, is now a museum. His statue stands in Place Foch, and he was baptised in the cathedral. The Palais Fesch holds a large collection of Italian painting built up by Napoleon's uncle, Cardinal Fesch.

The Îles Sanguinaires, a chain of reddish islets, and the Genoese tower at the Pointe de la Parata make the favourite sunset view at the end of the bay. Beaches stretch along the gulf, and roads climb inland through chestnut and pine to mountain villages. Cargèse, a village with a Greek Catholic church founded by settlers from Greece, lies to the north.

Corsican tables offer cured meats such as figatellu and prisuttu, brocciu, a fresh sheep's cheese, chestnut-flour cakes, honey and myrtle liqueur, with red wines of the Ajaccio appellation. The maquis scrub is fragrant in spring, and the sea stays swimmable well into autumn.