Cargèse is blessed with its own lovely beaches – Peru, Menasina and Chiuni, and remains a picturesque village perched up above its little harbour. Founded in the 18th century by Greeks fleeing Ottoman rule, the village is known for its two ancient churches – one Greek Orthodox and one Latin, which face each other across a deep divide, but there is little division between their parishioners. Each spring, Greek Orthodox and Catholic join in a colourful Easter Monday parade. Cargèse also has lovely countryside with gentle walks, and so much of the West Coast is within its reach.

Twenty minutes north of Cargèse, another spectacle begins – the Gulf of Porto – an immense body of deep blue water surrounded by red granite cliffs which is a protected site and classified by UNESCO. From the village of Piana, the first impression of the Gulf is breathtaking.

Here begin the Calanche de Piana; an untamed chaos of salmon-coloured granite and porphyry sculpted by the elements into extraordinary cliffs and stacks. As you twist along a road 1000 feet above the sea, a cast of ‘characters’ looms in the rock – here a ‘bishop’, there a ‘Madonna and child’.

Piana itself is miraculously unspoilt. A small russet-roofed town, smothered in geraniums, it becomes a tranquil idyll when day-trippers depart. The sandy cove of Ficajola lies below Piana at the end of a winding road, whilst the lovely stretch of sand of the Plage d’Arone is to the south near the spectacular Capu Rossu headland.

Porto, further north, marked by its much-photographed Genoese tower, was once merely a harbour for the village of Ota, perched further up the mountain. Its development into a modern, eucalyptus-shaded resort has been kept within bounds by its topography.

At the northern end of the Gulf sits the Scandola Nature Reserve, where rare species of flora and fauna are studied and admired. The Reserve can be visited via boat trips from either Cargèse or Porto, which also stop at the tiny village of Girolata, reached only by boat or a 11/2 hour walk from the Col de la Croix, north of Partinello.

The coast may well be impressive and its walks abundant, but inland the spectacle goes on amidst the pine forest of Aitone and the dramatic Spelunca gorges and in the lakes, waterfalls, rock pools and abandoned villages, which nestle in the hills and mountains of this truly extraordinary part of Corsica.