Corsica 7 Days

Corsica is a French Mediterranean island of 8,722 km2 with more than 1,000 km of coastline and a mountainous interior that rises to Monte Cinto at 2,706 m, and that combination is exactly why a Corsica 7 days plan needs to be built around bases rather than one-night hops. The distances on the map look small. The roads are mountain roads, and the published drive times to Corte alone, one hour from Bastia, one and a half from Ajaccio, two hours forty-five from Bonifacio, tell the real story. This itinerary strings the island together with three bases, one inland day, two boat trips and a realistic rhythm, and every hour and euro printed below comes from official and operator sources.

Where Should A Corsica 7 Days Route Start And End?

The most efficient shape for Corsica 7 days is a west-to-south loop: arrive at Ajaccio or Calvi, spend the first block in Ajaccio and the Sanguinaires gulf, move to the Porto, Piana and Scandola coast, cross inland through Corte, and finish at Porto-Vecchio and Bonifacio before flying out of Figari. Ajaccio and Bastia are the two biggest towns, with 76,320 and 46,867 residents respectively, and both sit on the island's rail spine. Figari Sud Corse airport serves the south directly, so an open-jaw ticket, in at Ajaccio or Calvi, out of Figari or Bastia, saves a long final transfer.

Arrival shapes everything. Corsica has four airports, Ajaccio Napoléon Bonaparte (AJA), Bastia Poretta (BIA), Figari Sud Corse (FSC) and Calvi Sainte-Catherine (CLY), and ferry ports including Ajaccio, Bastia, Bonifacio, L'Île-Rousse, Propriano and Porto-Vecchio. Ferries run from Marseille, Toulon, Nice, Livorno, Savona, Genoa and Santa Teresa Gallura in Sardinia, and crossing times reported for these routes range from about 50 minutes on the Sardinia hop to roughly 12 or 13 hours overnight from Marseille. If your crossing times matter, the Corsica ferry planning guide breaks down each route.

Two bases work for a shorter stay, and Corsica in 5 days covers that shape; with ten days or more the same loop relaxes into the plan on Corsica in 10 days. Seven days is the shortest span in which the loop below does not feel rushed, because each base gets two nights and only two transfers carry luggage.

What Does A Balanced Corsica 7 Days Itinerary Look Like?

A balanced Corsica 7 days itinerary runs: Day 1 Ajaccio and its museums, Day 2 the Sanguinaires gulf by boat, Day 3 the drive north on the D81 to Porto and the Calanques de Piana, Day 4 a Scandola and Girolata cruise, Day 5 the transfer east through Corte with a citadel stop, Day 6 Bonifacio and a Lavezzi boat trip, Day 7 the beaches at Palombaggia or Santa Giulia before departure. Two nights in Ajaccio, two on the Porto coast, two in Porto-Vecchio, and the week holds together.

The museums on Day 1 carry fixed, published prices. Maison Bonaparte on Rue Saint-Charles, 200 m from the bus station and ferry terminal and reached by bus 8 from the airport, charges EUR 10 full price, EUR 8 for non-EU residents aged 18 to 25 and large families, and is free for EU residents under 26; it is open every day except Monday, from 10:00 to 17:30 between 1 July and 30 September. Palais Fesch is EUR 10 full, EUR 6 for over-65s, free up to 18, and open daily 09:00 to 17:00. A Cupulatta, the turtle park near Vero in the Gravona valley, is an easy half-day out of Ajaccio on a quieter afternoon, and its skip-the-line ticket fits a rest day inside the week's rhythm; Check availability if that slot appeals.

Day 3 is the week's great drive. The D81 out of Ajaccio threads the red granite of the Calanques de Piana, part of the UNESCO property "Gulf of Porto: Calanche of Piana, Gulf of Girolata, Scandola Reserve", inscribed in 1983. Inforoutes Corse publishes live road conditions and accessibility levels for the main mountain passes, and checking it before this leg is standard practice on an island where storm closures happen.

Day 5's inland crossing is what separates this loop from a pure coastal plan. Corte, the island's old capital, sits inland where the roads from all four coasts meet, and the Musée de la Corse inside the citadel charges EUR 5.50 full, EUR 4 reduced without a temporary show, EUR 3 for over-65s and young people, with one ticket covering both museum and citadel. It is open daily 10:00 to 19:00 from 1 May to 31 October, closed only on 1 May itself in that period.

How Much Driving Fits Into Corsica 7 Days?

Driving in Corsica 7 days should be capped at roughly two to three hours of moving time per transfer day, and the published road times to Corte, one hour from Bastia, one hour thirty from Ajaccio, one hour thirty from Calvi, two hours from Porto-Vecchio, two hours forty-five from Bonifacio and two hours forty-five from Propriano, show why. Those figures come from the Corte museum's own practical page, and mountain roads add stops, gradients and single-lane sections that the clock does not show.

Three transfers carry the week: Ajaccio to the Porto coast, Porto to Porto-Vecchio through Corte, and the final hop to Figari. Everything else is short. The Corsica road trip guide stretches the same roads across two weeks, and driving in Corsica covers the habits these roads demand; the short version is that average speeds stay low and daylight should be spent on the views, not the wheel.

Do you need a car for the whole week? Mostly yes on this loop, because the D81 and the Corte crossing have no practical transit alternative at touring pace. The question has a fuller answer, and do you need a car in Corsica works through the rail-and-boat alternative using the Chemins de fer de la Corse lines, Ajaccio to Bastia via Corte, Ponte-Leccia to Calvi, and the Balagne coastal line between Calvi and L'Île-Rousse.

Which Boat Trips Belong In A Corsica 7 Days Plan?

Two boat days belong in a Corsica 7 days plan: a Sanguinaires or gulf cruise out of Ajaccio early in the week, and a Scandola, Girolata and Calanche de Piana cruise from Porto in the middle, with a Lavezzi catamaran from Porto-Vecchio as the strongest third option if the southern base gets an extra day. Scandola is the fixed point: the reserve, created by ministerial order on 9 December 1975 as the first nature reserve in Corsica, covers 1,000 ha of sea and 919 ha of land, and its terrestrial part is closed to the public, so visits are by boat only.

The reserve sits inside the UNESCO property with the Calanche of Piana and the Gulf of Girolata, 11,800 ha inscribed in 1983 under natural criteria (vii), (viii) and (x), and it is managed by the Parc naturel régional de Corse, the regional park created in 1972 that now spans 4,484 km2. Daytime anchoring is allowed outside the 70 ha integral reserve and the Gargalu channel, with anchors lifted at sunset, and recreational line fishing and spearfishing are prohibited. A state and OEC steering committee on 28 April 2026 renewed the management agreement and confirmed voluntary operator labelling, a QR-code tracking trial for pleasure boats and added controls at sea, with quotas and licences to be consolidated in a regulatory framework being finalised. The full index of guides sits on Corsica Travel Guide.

Choosing between cruise ports is simple geography. From Porto, cruises cover Scandola, Girolata and the Calanche de Piana; from Cargèse, afternoon cruises add a Girolata stop; from Ajaccio, full-day cruises reach Scandola in a longer day at sea. The Scandola boat tour guide compares the options, and the Calanques de Piana tour page covers the shorter Piana-only runs.

In the south, the Lavezzi islands sit inside the Bouches de Bonifacio Nature Reserve, and catamaran and cruise options run from both Bonifacio and Porto-Vecchio. The Bonifacio boat tour guide lays out the cliff-and-Lavezzi combinations, and swimming at the islands has its own answer page. Booking either cruise for a fixed day early in each base block, with a spare afternoon behind it for weather, is how a week absorbs a cancelled sailing without collapsing.

Where Should You Stay Each Night In Corsica?

The three-base answer for Corsica 7 days is two nights in Ajaccio, two nights at Porto or Piana, and two or three nights at Porto-Vecchio or Bonifacio, because each base sits inside an hour or two of its cluster of sights and each keeps transfer days short. Ajaccio fronts the Sanguinaires gulf and the museums; Porto fronts Scandola and Piana; Porto-Vecchio fronts Palombaggia, Santa Giulia, Rondinara and the Bonifacio cliffs.

Swapping the order, Bastia first and the south last, suits arrivals from Italy or a Sardinia combination. The Corsica north itinerary and Corsica south itinerary pages each expand one half of the island in detail, and where should I stay in Corsica for beaches answers the base question purely on sand. Accommodation rates are not given here.

What Does A Corsica 7 Days Trip Cost In Entry Fees And Refuges?

The fixed, published entry costs across a Corsica 7 days plan total roughly EUR 25 to EUR 40 per adult for the sightseeing core: Maison Bonaparte at EUR 10, Palais Fesch at EUR 10, Musée de la Corse at EUR 5.50 and Filitosa at EUR 9, with free entry for EU residents under 26 at the two Ajaccio museums and free entry up to 18 at Palais Fesch. Boat trips, food and lodging sit on top of that, and product prices render with each bookable option rather than being typed here.

Filitosa, the prehistoric site at Sollacaro, runs from 1 April to 2 November, 09:00 to sunset with a museum until 19:00, and pairs naturally with the drive south past the Golfe de Porto. The Escalier du Roi d'Aragon in Bonifacio is 189 steps cut down the cliff with a 180-degree view toward Sardinia, and children receive a diploma at the top; the fee is reported at about EUR 5, so confirm the current rate when buying.

If the week shifts toward hiking, the refuge costs are fixed and published too. On the GR20, a bunk in a PNRC refuge is EUR 20 per person, a bivouac pitch is EUR 12, and a rented tent is EUR 27 for one person or EUR 39 for two, with dogs not allowed inside refuges or rented tents. A seven-day stay will not walk the 180 km GR20, which the Corsican Assembly's own text describes as about fifteen stages of 4 to 8.5 hours, but the refuge system also anchors shorter treks, and hiking in Corsica maps the day-walk alternatives around each base of this loop.

When Should You Schedule Corsica 7 Days?

Schedule Corsica 7 days around the Météo-France station normals: July at Ajaccio averages 28.6 °C daytime highs with only 8.6 mm of rain and 12 h 6 min of sunshine a day, while November averages 111.8 mm of rain and the winter months drop to 4.0 to 4.7 sunshine hours a day, so the warm, dry, bright window runs June through September and the wet months are October and November. August carries the highest average daytime high at Ajaccio, 29.2 °C, and at Bastia, 29.8 C.

These are Météo-France station normals for the 1991 to 2020 period, Ajaccio at Campo dell'Oro and the Bastia station, and they describe averages rather than forecasts. Two seasonal rules matter more than any temperature figure. First, from 15 June to 30 September it is forbidden to light a fire or smoke in forests, maquis and massifs, and the fire-risk map is updated at 18:00 each day for the next, with some massifs closed entirely on the worst days. Second, PNRC refuges on the GR20 are guarded only from 16 May to 4 October, and refuge nights must be booked online.

Shoulder weeks change the plan less than you might think, and Corsica in the rain lists the museum and town options that carry a wet day in each base. For the month-by-month detail, including the question of swimming late in the season, the climate pages hold the full station tables.

Can You Adapt Corsica 7 Days For Kids, Or Without A Car?

Corsica 7 days adapts for families by trimming the transfer days and leaning on the beaches and turtle park, and it adapts without a car by running the rail spine, Ajaccio to Bastia via Corte plus the Balagne line between Calvi and L'Île-Rousse, with boat trips out of each port town instead of the D81 drive. Both versions keep the same three-region logic, west, mountains, south, because the island's shape does not change with the transport.

For families, the week becomes Ajaccio with the open-top bus tour of the town and coast, the A Cupulatta turtle park, the Balagne beaches and the L'Île-Rousse catamaran days, then a shorter southern block at Palombaggia or Santa Giulia with the Bonifacio boat trip. The Corsica with kids page expands this version, and lifeguard coverage is a real factor in summer: Ajaccio operated seven lifeguard posts from 1 July to the end of August on its main beaches, and Haute-Corse's supervised beaches are staffed by volunteer firefighters over roughly the same window.

Without a car, the train reaches Ajaccio, Corte, Calvi, L'Île-Rousse and Bastia, and the missing west-coast leg, Porto and Piana, is covered by the Scandola and Piana cruises that run from Ajaccio itself as full days at sea. Emergency numbers on any version: 112 for all emergencies, 15 medical, 17 police, 18 fire, 114 by SMS, and 196 for sea rescue; mountain rescue is the PGHM at Ajaccio on 04 95 24 24 00. The euro is the currency, and tipping follows French law: menus must state that service is included, and anything extra is optional.

First-time visitors weighing how the week fits together can start from first time in Corsica, and the budget question has its own page; the headline here is that entry fees are modest, boats are the main variable cost, and the bases above keep fuel and transfer time inside a sane band. For everything the island offers beyond this loop, the full things to do in Corsica index sits at the root of this site, and the sister plans at Corsica in 3 days and Corsica in 14 days stretch or compress the same skeleton.

Common Questions About Corsica 7 Days