The Solenzara river rises in the granite heart of southern Corsica and falls to the east coast in a series of pools so clear and green that they look lit from below, and it is here, at the mouth, that the Bavella road begins. The coastal village of Sari-Solenzara is small and workaday, with a harbour, a long beach and a handful of restaurants, and it also has a military air base nearby whose jets occasionally tear across the sky. It is a quiet place by Corsican standards, a spot to fill the tank, buy a bottle of water and have a coffee before the mountains.
From the shore the road climbs inland through chestnut and cork oak, then pine, rising in long bends along the river gorge to the Col de Bavella, at about 1,200 metres, among some of the most dramatic mountain scenery in the Mediterranean. The Aiguilles de Bavella are a row of jagged granite spires, rising a thousand metres or more above the forest, and at dawn or dusk they turn orange and pink. At the pass a small chapel, Notre-Dame-des-Neiges, holds a statue of the Virgin in a shrine, a reminder that the weather up here can bring snow even when the coast is warm.
The road is the D268, narrow, patchy and twisting, with drops on one side and rock walls on the other, and the pace is slow because of both the bends and the animals. Pigs, cows and goats roam freely in the Corsican hills, and they treat the road as their own, often lying in the middle at blind corners. Give them space, because they will not give you any. The Corsican pine, the laricio, grows tall and straight here, its trunks silver in the sun, and mouflon, the wild mountain sheep, live on the high slopes.
Villages such as Zonza, in the hills, have places to eat and stay, with a rustic menu of wild boar stew, chestnut-flour dishes and cured ham, and a glass of local red. For fuel, Sari-Solenzara has pumps, and Porto-Vecchio, thirty-one kilometres to the south, has more, so top up before you climb. The weather in summer is hot at sea level and cool at the pass, while storms can build in the afternoon. In dry summers, forest fires are a real danger, and the authorities restrict access, so check the situation before you set out. Rivers are tempting for a swim, but the rocks are slippery, and currents can be strong after rain.