Corsica vs Sardinia: which is the Med's ultimate holiday island?

The old adage that good things come in small packages, while hardly untrue, does tend to ignore the idea that good things come in large format, too. Big can be beautiful – and it achieves a rare artistry in two of the biggest islands in the Mediterranean. Run an eye across the European map and you cannot miss them, dominating the western half of the continent’s defining sea. Corsica – France’s southern satellite – shimmering off the coast of Tuscany; Sardinia, Italy’s “other” vast outcrop, waiting a little further down.

They are big enough, these near-neighbours, that they could be independent powers in their own right. Indeed, at various points in their histories, they were. Even now, they have the scale and heft of nation states. Were it a country, Sardinia – the second largest island in the Med, eclipsed only by its compatriot Sicily – would be the planet’s 146th largest; only just smaller than both Rwanda and North Macedonia, bigger than each of Israel and Belize. Corsica, the Med’s fourth-biggest island, is only narrowly smaller than the third, Cyprus – which, you have probably observed, is a country proper.

They share more than their strange case of size over status. Arguably, each has more in common with the other than with the politicians in Rome and Paris who pull their strings remotely. Yes, there are cities, harbours and airports. But both islands are unashamedly wild in their geography – mountainous massifs swelling up from their stony hearts, the slopes slipping down to ragged coastlines of craggy bays, quiet towns and gorgeous beaches.

DH Lawrence conveyed this thought succinctly in his 1921 travelogue Sea and Sardinia, writing that “the land resembles no other place. Sardinia is something else. Enchanting spaces and distance to travel. Nothing finished, nothing definitive. It is like freedom itself.”

So why aren’t they better appreciated in the UK? Some 6.3 million British tourists went to Italy amid the pre-pandemic tranquillity of 2019, but only 357,000 of those travellers – 5.6 per cent – were headed for Sardinia. With Corsica, the figure falls even further. Around 17 million Britons travel to France every year. In 2017 – the last available set of statistics – only 37,800 ventured to the largest French island this side of the South Pacific.

In part, this is an image issue; the islands’ untamed aesthetics sometimes leave them viewed as destinations only for the intrepid. But while options for active tours are myriad, both Corsica (visit-corsica.com) and Sardinia (sardegnaturismo.it) offer holidays beyond the purely adventurous. They are rich in history, food and culture. And more importantly, they deal in relaxation and summer comforts – as the following “mini guides” demonstrate.

Corsica

While it sits closer to the Italian mainland (50 miles) than the mother country (95 miles), Corsica is an unsurprisingly popular destination for French tourists; even those who opt not to fly in can make the journey by ferry from Nice to Bastia in eight hours.

With this, the island is as unfailingly French as you would expect a French island to be, all gourmet joys in Ajaccio’s restaurants and stylish couture in the shops of Porto-Vecchio – with the caveat that it has only actually been French since various diplomatic machinations and military manoeuvres in 1768 and 1769 made it so.

Somewhere in the grooves in its rocks, the island clearly remembers a time before Paris came calling. The peaks and hiking trails of its central Cinto massif feel a world away from the brasseries of the Marais – even as sun-seekers from Saint-Germain work on their tan along its 668 lovely miles of coastline.

Getting there

British Airways (0344 493 0787; ba.com) flies to Bastia and Figari from Heathrow; easyJet (0330 551 5151; easyjet.com) to the same two airports from Gatwick. Air Corsica (0825 353535; aircorsica.com) connects both Ajaccio and Calvi to Stansted.

City streets

Corsica’s prettiest urban area is arguably not its capital, Ajaccio, but the port of its far north. Bastia is gorgeously positioned at the bottom of the Cap Corse peninsula – the Serra di Pignu mountain cradling it to the west, the Tuscan island of Elba twinkling away to the east. The city adds to the picture – the Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste rising above the harbour, the Vieux Port festooned with restaurants like seafood specialist Le Jean Bart (le-jean-bart.zenchef.com). An engaging place to
idle. Waterfront four-star Hotel des Gouverneurs (00 334 9547 1010; hoteldesgouverneurs.fr) has doubles for £124.

Historical hot spot

Wedged into the west coast of the island, the capital is also an engaging option for a few days away – a four-night stay at the four-star Radisson Blu Resort Ajaccio Bay, flying from Heathrow on June 25, costs from £534 per person, via British Airways Holidays. Its most established link to the past needs little explanation – Napoleon Bonaparte was born in the city in 1769, rising swiftly from provincial origins to become emperor of France and scourge of Europe. His earliest days are preserved at the Maison Bonaparte (musees-nationaux-malmaison.fr) on Rue Saint-Charles – including the sparsely furnished chamber where he took his first breath.

Natural beauty

One of the joys of Corsica’s mountainous middle is that it can be reached from all corners of the coastline with ­little more than a hire car and a sense of curiosity. Those who want to enjoy the massif to the full will perhaps be tempted by the canyoneering jaunt offered by Outdoor Visit (outdoorvisit.com) – a nine-hour feast of climbing, zip-lining, jumping and swimming on and around the flanks of Monte Cinto. It runs each day from April to October, from £59 per person. Children need to be 14 or over.

Don’t miss

All but occupying the island’s southernmost point (the Pertusatu lighthouse, three miles beyond, actually fulfils this role), Bonifacio is a vision in honied stone and former military prowess.

Its clifftop citadel has existed since the 9th century, and if the walk up can be demanding on hot days, the scenery and ambience justify the endeavour. Its cluttered streets, spreading out around the Église Sainte-Marie-Majeure, could almost be a film set. The Place du ­Marché, perched precariously on the clifftop, deals in cafés, ice cream parlours, and views of Sardinia, 10 miles away across the Strait of Bonifacio.

Hidden wonder

Corsica does that timeless version of the Mediterranean – a sheltered bay, a hillside rearing pristine and undeveloped, a few small restaurants on the water, fishing boats at rest – with particular persuasion at Galeria. This sleepy ­village, burrowed into the north-west coast, won’t raise your temperature beyond the 25C the island usually enjoys in high summer. But if you want a week of gentle recuperation, it will certainly deliver. Tui Villas (020 3529 8455; tuivillas.com) has a presence there – Primavera, a four-bedroom retreat that can be hired from £657 a week (from £1,926 this July).

Three great ways to visit Corsica

Luxury

Corsica shows its chicest face in the south-east, where Parisians snooze on the sands of Plage de Palombaggia, and the marina at Porto-Vecchio is full of yachts. It’s possible to book a week in the area for a plausible amount. Simpson Travel (020 3627 4867; simpsontravel.com) has properties here. Among them is Villa Fiorella – a two-bedroom hideaway with an infinity pool and sun terrace which gazes towards the water. It is still on offer in the week of July 3 from £4,826 (flights extra).

Family

There are also reasonable prices for family holidays. Corsican Places (01489 866 931; corsica.co.uk) offers breaks to the Residencia Sognu di Rena – a simple but comfortable four-star apartment complex with a pool, on the sands of the east coast. A seven-night holiday for a family of three, flying from Heathrow on July 23, costs from £2,973.

Active

Holidays with hiking boots and back-packs are entirely feasible. Exodus Travels (020 8772 3936; exodus.co.uk) runs a regular “Mountains and Villages of Corsica” break – an eight-day guided odyssey which picks a gloriously slow path between Bastia and Ajaccio. Some parts of the route are covered by Corsica’s high-wire railways. Others – via the fabled GR20 walking route, and along the River Gravona to the Richiusa Gorge – go on foot. Ten editions of the tour are scheduled for between now and the end of September – from £1,499 per person, including flights and accommodation at a rustic hotel near Bocognano.

Sardinia

To describe Sardinia as “Italy’s ­second biggest island”, while accurate, is to undersell a place whose history arcs back to a time long before the nation of Puccini and ­puttanesca. The Nuragic civilisation held sway on Sardinia from the 18th century BC until the arrival of the Romans some 1,500 years later. Their footprints and tombs are tattooed onto the landmass – to Unesco-listed effect, in the case of the Su Nuraxi di Barumini archaeological site. Other indications of its “otherness” are, however, less ancient. The most romantic are surely the ongoing existence of an indigenous Sardinian and a version of Catalan – both recognised as two of Italy’s official minority languages. These linguistic rarities set ­Sardinia apart from the mainland as firmly as its rugged interior and ­tendency to look inwards, even if some of its resorts are as special as those in Amalfi and ­Tuscany.

Getting there

Northeasterly Olbia, the gateway to the feted Costa Smeralda, has become the busiest Sardinian airport for flights from the UK. BA serves it from Heathrow, easyJet from Gatwick, Luton, Bristol and Manchester. Its pivotal role in package holidays is also visible in connections operated by Tui (020 3451 2688; tui.co.uk), from Manchester and Gatwick – and by Jet2 (0800 408 0778; jet2holidays.com), which flies in from Stansted and Manchester, and will add new routes from Birmingham and Leeds-Bradford in 2023.

The capital Cagliari, down on the south coast, welcomes both British Airways and easyJet from Gatwick, plus Ryanair (01279 358 438; ryanair.com) from Stansted. The latter airline flies the sole British connection to Alghero on the west coast (also from Stansted).

City streets

While you would never describe it as the most attractive of Italian cities – it is, after all, a busy port with all the freight containers and dockyards that entails – Sardinia’s capital is not without merit. Indeed, Cagliari reads out various chapters of the island’s tale with clear diction – the Tuvixeddu necropolis, where the Carthaginian civilisation buried its island dead between the sixth and third centuries BC; a splendid Roman amphitheatre; a Museum of Archaeology (museoarcheocagliari.beniculturali.it) which covers the above in detail. There is modern finesse as well. The Palazzio Doglio (00 39 0706 4640; palazzodoglio.com), a five-star in the historic centre, offers doubles from £173 per night.

Smaller and prettier, Alghero is a less frenetic alternative. The kernel of ­Catalan-speaking Sardinia still has 14th-century ramparts and a 16th-­century gothic cathedral – and is close to some of the island’s loveliest beaches (Spiaggia del Lido di Alghero is a case in point). A three-night stay at the four-star Villa Las Tronas, tucked onto its own mini peninsula, costs from £849 per person – with Kirker Holidays (020 7593 1899; kirkerholidays.com).

Historical hot spot

Su Nuraxi di Barumini (fondazionebarumini.it) wears its multiple millennia openly and solemnly – its maze of 17th-century BC rooms and corridors rising from the interior in what Unesco declares to be “the finest and most complete example of this remarkable form of prehistoric architecture”. Local tour operator Blu Alghero (blualghero-sardinia.com) offers a four-hour escorted trip to the village from Cagliari, from £85 a head. Equally intriguing (and accessible by car from resorts on the east coast) are the Tomba dei Giganti (santateresaturismo.it), a series of what are believed to be Nuragic tombs, adorning a forested hillside just above Lanusei.

Natural beauty

The east coast has a particular delight in the National Park of the Bay of Orosei and Gennargentu (see sardegnaturismo.it). Ignore the wordiness of the name. Here is a magical enclave of geographical highs and lows – from the 6,017ft summit of Punta La Marmora in the Gennargentu range, to cliffs and secluded beaches (the likes of Cala Mariolu and Cala Biriala) along the Tyrrhenian Sea. The spaces between are coated with ancient oaks and strawberry trees, and laced with trails you can amble at leisure, scanning the sky for the buzzards and eagles that soar above.

Don’t miss

At the south-west corner of the main island, you find a Sardinian side-islet with a story of its own. Now connected to its bigger sibling by road, Sant’Antioco was an important dot on the map of the ancient world – its key port, Sulci, was tussled over by Pompey and Caesar during the Roman civil war that saw the latter rise to power. Its ruins are still there, next to its modern-day successor (also called Sant’Antioco) – a sleepy town where you can eat in the pizzerias along the front, or even stay over. The Hotel Moderno (00 39 34770 51093; hotel-moderno-sant-antioco.it) does double rooms for £68.

Hidden wonder

For the south-west, read the far north. The seven Maddalena islands loiter almost as close to Corsica as to Sardinia, in the Strait of Bonifacio. You need to take a ferry (maddalenalines.it) to reach them – from Palau on the Costa Smeralda to the biggest of the septet, Isola Maddalena. But the short crossing is certainly worth the effort, dropping you into a realm of gentle coves and shallow swimming waters, rightly protected as a national park (parks.it). Caprera, linked to Isola Maddalena by a causeway, has wonderful beaches, like the remote Cala Napoletana.

Three great ways to visit Sardinia

Luxury

Stretched over 40 or so miles of shoreline, roughly between Santa Teresa Gallura and Capriccioli, the Costa Smeralda is known for elegant escapism – and is almost marketed as a separate, high-end destination (see destinationcostasmeralda.com).

The resorts and playgrounds that bejewel it focus on class – the Hotel Cala di Volpe (00 39 07899 76111; marriott.co.uk), at Capriccioli, has a tie-in with Japanese star chef Nobu Matsuhisa (and double rooms from £385). A week’s stay at the nearby five-star Hotel Romazzino, meanwhile, can be booked from £2,500 per person, flights included, via Scott Dunn (020 3553 6045; scottdunn.com).

Family

The south coast also has fine accommodation. Forte Village (00 39 07092 18818; fortevillageresort.com), near Santa Margherita di Pula, has earned a name for its residential sports courses for children, led by vaunted professionals (this year’s football sessions will be with Real Madrid coaches). Adults can dive into food made by two-Michelin-starred chef Massimiliano Mascia, and a large spa.

A one-week half-board stay for a family of three at the resort’s Hotel Bouganville, arriving on July 30, starts at £7,493 (with flights), via Just Sardinia (01202 484858; justsardinia.co.uk).

Active

The Sardinian interior is great for mountain-biking. Saddle Skedaddle (0191 265 1110; skedaddle.com) offers Sardinia: Coast To Coast – an eight-day escorted romp from Magazzini in the west to Bari Sardo in the east, via the likes of the Marmilla hills and Su Nuraxi di Barumini. This year’s final running of the trip is slated for Sept 10, from £1,900 per person, including bike hire (flights extra).

Full details of entry requirements and Covid regulations for France and Italy, can be found at telegraph.co.uk/tt-travelrules. For more ideas on where to stay, see our full guide to the best hotels in Sardinia.