Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Ajaccio in 1769, a year after France bought Corsica from Genoa, and the town has never let anyone forget it. His family house is now a museum, a statue of him on horseback stands in the main square, and street names, cafés and shops all carry his name. The old town is a cluster of tall ochre houses along the harbour, with a modest cathedral where he was baptised, and the best way to feel the place is to sit at a harbourside table with a coffee and watch the ferries and fishing boats come and go.
Ajaccio faces west, across a wide gulf of blue water, and at its mouth the Sanguinaires islands, a line of pink granite rocks, glow red at sunset. The town sits on the west coast of Corsica, a mountainous island in the Mediterranean that rises steeply from the sea to peaks of over two thousand metres, and the interior is covered in maquis, a dense scrub of myrtle, cistus, rosemary and wild herbs that gives the island a perfume that you smell as soon as the ferry doors open.
The D81 is the coast road north, one of the most scenic roads in France. It leaves Ajaccio and runs along the gulf, then climbs and falls along the shore through Sagone and Cargèse, a village founded by Greek refugees in the seventeenth century, before arriving at Piana, where the Calanques, red granite pinnacles that plunge to the sea, appear in the road's final stretch. The road is narrow and twisting, with tight bends, sheer drops, no guardrails in places and campervans in summer, so take it steadily. The tarmac is generally decent, but occasional rockfalls and wandering cows and pigs are part of the landscape.
July and August bring the heaviest traffic and heat, and the best months for riding are May, June and September, when the light is warm and the road is quiet. Ajaccio has everything for riders, from fuel to repair shops and restaurants, and stations farther north become sparser, so fill up before leaving. Try brocciu cheese, charcuterie and chestnut-flour specialities, which are typical of Corsica.