A destination, a festival
Bastia: the essentials
Are all Corsican towns the same? Each is part of a specific geography and landscape that define its main characteristics and shape its daily life and its inhabitants. Bastia’s distinctive character and spirit stem first and foremost from the north of the island, a region that is at once unassuming and majestic, striking and elusive.
Far from the hustle and bustle and ostentation of the big cities, Bastia cultivates simplicity and authenticity on its own, decidedly human scale.
It is also a rock nestled against the east coast, caressed each morning by the gentle rays of the rising sun. Bathed in Mediterranean light and caressed by the sea mist, Corsica’s former capital glows and breathes. Serene, it gazes out towards the Tuscan horizon.
The sea has always been his companion.
It reminds us how the Corsicans learnt to protect themselves through these Genoese towers, built along the entire coastline with their own hands, standing as valiant and reassuring sentinels. It teaches us that here, at the very top of the Isle of Beauty, there is a people of sailors and adventurers who set off for the Americas or elsewhere to seek their fortune, then returned to their homeland to build sumptuous palaces (the buildings), which bear witness to an exemplary success story.
Our designers
With fine fabrics, expertly crafted draping and pleating, and printed or plain fabrics, island fashion celebrates elegance and quality.
The soul of Bastia
Bastia also tells us about the role played by the local dignitaries (the sgiò) in Corsica’s past, and that of the people, whose wisdom she alone embodies.
The beauty seems to have lived it all.
Haughty, it has set itself up as a citadel. And history is etched into its walls, its museum, its neighbourhoods rich in anecdotes, in its oldest and most secluded alleyways, and within its 14 churches, so dear to the people of Bastia – veritable living theatres where traditions and patron saints are still celebrated time and again in the spirit of the solidarity of days gone by, lost elsewhere but preserved here by the brotherhoods.
Bastia is a town the likes of which are no longer built, in the heart of a predominantly rural island. A town that feels like a village. Or like many villages rolled into one: Terra Nova, the old harbour, the market, Rue Napoléon, Saint Joseph, Place Saint Nicolas… All filled with the sounds of the Corsican language, its shimmering inflections, its powerful and moving imagery, and its poetry. A language spoken by the Corsicans and which speaks of Corsica, evoking it better than any other. And wherever it is written, it shows the way.
Through her, just as in Molière’s language, Bastia becomes a host of choice, a cosy retreat, a refreshing change of scenery…
