On the west coast of Corsica, the granite does something that granite is not supposed to do. In the Calanques de Piana, huge cliffs of red-orange rock, eroded into pillars, needles and strange faces, plunge a few hundred metres into the sea. The colour changes through the day, burning orange in the late afternoon and deep crimson at sunset, against a sea of dark blue. This is part of the Gulf of Porto, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983 together with the nature reserve of Scandola, and nobody who has seen it has been disappointed.
The road through it, the D81, is a nineteenth-century coast road that clings to the cliffs between Piana and Porto, and it is one of the great motorcycle roads of the Mediterranean. It is narrow, twisting and slow, with tight hairpins, blind corners and sudden drops, and the stone parapets are not always high. Buses and campervans squeeze past each other with inches to spare, and pigs and goats wander across the road at will. Ride carefully, stay in your lane, and take the opportunity to pull into the signed viewpoints. In the middle of the day, the light is flat and the road crowded. Early morning or the hour before sunset gives the best colours and the least traffic.
The nearby village of Piana, which is one of the most beautiful villages in France, is a cluster of stone houses on a hillside above the gulf, and a good place for a coffee. Walking trails lead down into the calanques, including the old mule path called the Chemin des Muletiers, and on foot you can see the rocks close up, though the paths are steep and rough and need proper shoes. Capo d'Orto, a jagged peak, stands to the east, and the maquis, the dense, fragrant scrub of Corsica, covers the slopes with cistus, myrtle and wild herbs.
Fuel needs careful planning. Piana is small, Porto has limited services, and the bigger towns of Ajaccio, about thirty-seven kilometres away, and Calvi are the safer places to fill the tank. Corsican roads can be slow, and distances take longer than the map suggests, so allow plenty of time and enjoy it.