The Most Beautiful Places in Corsica
7 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful places in Corsica are Calanche de Piana, Scandola Nature Reserve and King of Aragon's Staircase, Bonifacio. The list covers 7 places. Last updated 13 October 2026.
Corsica is often called a mountain in the sea. Granite peaks rise to more than two thousand metres within sight of the coast, red cliffs drop straight into clear water, and the slopes between are covered in the dense, fragrant scrub known as maquis. Its history is just as layered: prehistoric peoples carved standing stones into human figures, and centuries of Genoese rule left a ring of watchtowers around the shore.
The Gulf of Porto, on the west coast, gathers three places here. The Calanche de Piana are cliffs of red granite eroded into pinnacles, hollows and shapes that seem to change with the light. Facing them across the gulf, the Scandola Nature Reserve protects a peninsula of dark red volcanic rock, with sea caves and columns rising from the water and ospreys nesting on the ledges. In the harbour of Porto itself, the square Genoese tower known as the Torra di Portu stands on a rocky spur above the sea.
Inland and to the south, the island's oldest and highest scenery appears. Filitosa is a prehistoric site where menhirs were carved with faces, and some with swords and daggers, during the Bronze Age. The Aiguilles de Bavella are a range of jagged granite needles above a pass in the southern mountains, framed by old pines and visible from far down the valleys toward the eastern coast.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Calanche de Piana | Rock formation | |
| 2 | Scandola Nature Reserve | Nature reserve | ✓ |
| 3 | King of Aragon's Staircase, Bonifacio | Stairs | |
| 4 | Torra di Portu (Porto, Corsica) | Watchtower | |
| 5 | Filitosa | Megalith | |
| 6 | Aiguilles de Bavella | Rock formation | |
| 7 | Lavezzi Islands | Island |
01 Calanche de Piana
Calanques de Piana
France42.325° N 8.629° E
- UNESCO natural beauty
Image by jackmac34 from Pixabay On the west coast of Corsica, between the village of Piana and the little port of Porto, the mountains come down to the sea as a maze of red granite needles, towers and overhangs.
Did you know? In plan the calanche form a small V-shaped chain running from the Dardo cove on the Gulf of Porto to the Cavallaghju bridge, topping out at 698 metres.
02 Scandola Nature Reserve
France42.357° N 8.567° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
- UNESCO natural beauty
Image by jackmac34 from Pixabay The Scandola peninsula, on the west coast of Corsica, is what remains of an ancient volcano that collapsed into the sea.
Did you know? Its strictly protected core covers only about 70 hectares, a small fraction of the whole reserve.
03 King of Aragon's Staircase, Bonifacio
Escalier du roi d'Aragon
France41.386° N 9.156° E
Myrabella · CC BY-SA 3.0 Bonifacio stands on a narrow blade of white limestone at the southern tip of Corsica, its houses pressed right up to the edge of cliffs that drop sheer into the sea. Cut diagonally down the face of those cliffs is a single stairway of 189 steps.
Did you know? According to some accounts the first steps were cut as far back as the Neolithic, and the stairway was reworked again and again over the centuries.
04 Torra di Portu (Porto, Corsica)
Tour de Porto
France · 38 km from Ajaccio42.268° N 8.692° E
Myrabella · CC BY-SA 3.0 The tower of Porto stands on a knuckle of granite at the head of one of the most dramatic gulfs in the Mediterranean. Below it the Porto river meets the sea at a small marina; around it the coast of western Corsica breaks into orange-red porphyry cliffs and headlands that rise to hundreds of metres.
Did you know? Besides smoke and fire, the alarm from a tower's terrace could be sounded on the culombu, a large conch shell blown like a horn.
05 Filitosa
France · 23.2 km from Ajaccio41.747° N 8.871° E
JopkeB · CC BY-SA 4.0 On a low hill above the Taravo valley in southern Corsica, among olive trees and maquis, stone warriors stand in the grass. Their faces are carved in low relief — hollow eyes and mouths, a jutting nose and chin — and some carry swords or daggers on their chests.
Did you know? Unlike the long-standing alignments at Cauria, Filitosa's statues were toppled and reused as early as the late Bronze Age, suggesting a deliberate rejection of what they stood for.
06 Aiguilles de Bavella
France41.811° N 9.218° E
Crux · CC BY-SA 3.0 The Aiguilles de Bavella are a crown of jagged red granite needles in the mountains of southern Corsica, rising above the Col de Bavella (1,218 m) in Corse-du-Sud.
Did you know? The Col de Bavella is the southernmost of the four great passes that let roads cross Corsica's mountainous interior from one coast to the other.
07 Lavezzi Islands
ÃŽles Lavezzi
France41.341° N 9.254° E
Image by jackmac34 from Pixabay The Lavezzi Islands are a scatter of twenty-three granite islands, islets and reefs in the Strait of Bonifacio, the channel between Corsica and Sardinia. Wind and sea have worn the granite into rounded boulders and smooth domes, and between them lie small coves of clear turquoise water.
Did you know? The victims rest in two cemeteries on Lavezzu, Achiarino to the west and Furcone to the east, where only the captain's grave bears a name.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful places in Corsica?
- On our list, Calanche de Piana ranks first, followed by Scandola Nature Reserve and King of Aragon's Staircase, Bonifacio.
- Why are there so many towers along the coast of Corsica?
- The Republic of Genoa built a chain of watchtowers around the island, mostly in the sixteenth century, to warn of raids by pirates from North Africa. Dozens still stand, and the tower at Porto is among the best known.
- What is Filitosa known for?
- Filitosa is famous for its menhir statues, standing stones carved with human faces and, on some, weapons. They date from the Bronze Age and are among the most striking prehistoric sculptures in the Mediterranean.
- Why are the cliffs at Piana red?
- The Calanche are made of a granite rich in reddish feldspar. Wind, salt and rain have hollowed it into caves, arches and pinnacles called tafoni.
- What kinds of places are there to see in Corsica?
- In our collection, the places in Corsica are most often rock formations (2), islands (1), nature sanctuaries (1) and nature reserves (1).
- How many places are on this list in Corsica?
- The list covers 7 places.