I lost my heart in Corsica

Booking a self-catering holiday, like getting married again, is often a triumph of hope over experience.

But with a second marriage, unless you are marrying a mail-order bride from Ulan Bator, at least you get the chance of a good look at your prospective partner.

With self-catering, it's a blind date. Holiday brochures are not allowed to tell you lies, but painful experience has taught us that they can be extremely economical with the truth. And brochure photographs provide living evidence that the camera not only lies but lies through its teeth.

So we took the brochure claim that our self-catering property in Corsica would offer 'luxury' with a pinch of salt.

All we asked was a cooker that worked and a swimming pool that contained neither live frogs nor dead rodents (we've encountered both in our time).

When we rounded the corner of the road at the bottom of the Marine de Davia and got our first glimpse of the Villa Delphine we could scarcely believe our eyes. From the outside, the house looked less like a holiday home and more like the sort of hi-tech seaside lair where Blofeld would be plotting the downfall of 007.

The upstairs had the retro style of a Thirties liner with a curved stern deck rail fronting an enormous wooden sun-deck. Downstairs had something of a Guggenheim art gallery surrounding it.

Inside, things were even more sensational: mod cons included allover air-conditioning, satellite TV, a plunge pool with water-jet swim system, a hi-fi - even an icemaking machine. The front room had a massive picture window which looked over the curved swimming pool towards the Mediterranean, which was washing up at the bottom of the garden. Not a dead mouse to be seen.

The owner was on hand to reveal each new delight with a mixture of proprietorial pride and terrible angst. The last guests, he explained, were the family of a newly-minted computer millionaire who had broken expensive bedside lights and let the children toss pot plants into the plunge pool, wreaking havoc with the delicate filtration system.

He eyed my Deep Purple In Rock CD which was playing on the hi-fi when he arrived with obvious anxiety. An ageing rocker with a duff taste in Seventies music was all he needed.

In the circumstances, you couldn't blame him for finding reasons to return on a twice-daily basis, presumably to make sure that I hadn't tossed the widescreen TV into the pool.

The main problem for us was that the house was so wonderful, it was tough to drag ourselves away from it, even for a few hours.

Fortunately, we had discovered the delights of Corsica on our very first morning. A dawn arrival at Calvi airport meant we had several hours to kill before we could take possession of the Villa Delphine.

On a July morning that was already roasting by 9am, we parked our rental car (a wonderful Renault Kangoo - which looks like the result of an illicit liaison between a Renault Clio and an icecream van) and strolled around Calvi.

When St Tropez was beginning to establish itself as the Continental centre of the Swinging Sixties, Calvi was probably its nearest challenger. Like its Riviera rival, it boasted a chic port where the rich and famous could tie up their yachts, around the port were more pavement cafes than you could shake a baguette sandwich at and above the harbour was one of the loveliest old towns anywhere in the Med.

But while St Tropez found fame and fortune, Calvi gradually retreated back into obscurity. As you stand up on the walls of the old citadel - it was while attacking this mighty fortress that Admiral Nelson lost his eye - you gaze over one of the sweetest stretches of coastline you'll find anywhere in Europe.

There was not a tower block hotel anywhere in sight. Very impressive. The package-holiday revolution seems to have hardly touched the face of Corsica. As we drove along the coast towards L'Ile-Rousse - past the sprawling Foreign Legion base - it all reminded me of when I first visited the Cote d'Azur in the Sixties.

We retraced our steps to Calvi a few times during the week - once we travelled on the Thomas the Tank Engine train that rattles its way between L'Ile-Rousse and Calvi every hour. But L'Ile-Rousse was our main town. It doesn't have the smart sophistication of Calvi, but it's a friendly, small seaside town with plenty of good restaurants and a nice, tree-lined square where you can sit with a glass of wine and enjoy the velvety, warm Mediterranean evening.

We were lured inland up into the hills by road signs which pointed to the 'route des artisans': we're suckers for craftsmen's shops anywhere in the world. We weren't expecting villages as outrageously pretty as Pigna, where the old, pale-stone houses have been handsomely restored, many doing business not only as craft shops but also bed and breakfast places and restaurants.

The shops were good, too. One specialises in music boxes that play traditional Corsican tunes, another makes Corsican guitars and harpsichords. We could have lingered here for many happy hours.

But the siren call of the Villa Delphine lured us back. It would be hard to imagine anything more wonderful than sitting out on our exquisite sun terrace with a good book, a glass of something nice and inexpensive from the local Super-U supermarket and the sound of the Mediterranean lapping on the shore. This is what holidays are all about.

The problem we have now is not only how do we improve on the Villa Delphine - almost impossible - but also how do we find another holiday destination that can match Corsica. Nelson lost his eye - I may have lost my heart here.

Frank Barrett stayed at the four-bedroom Villa Delphine with Corsican Places (01903 748180; www.corsica.co.uk). A seven-night package including return flights, car hire and daily maid service costs from £534 per person.