On a Corsican wave of nostalgia

Change was inevitable, but this was ridiculous. For the first time in more than 50 years I was back in Ajaccio in Corsica and could recognise only two landmarks: the Mairie and the house where Napoleon was born.

The town I remembered as dirt poor and, as my French friends said, "très sauvage", which they translated loosely as "wildly beautiful". Now it was filthy rich, still beautiful, but sauvage, it seemed, no longer.

Sleek restaurants stood shoulder to shoulder, gazing down on wall-to-wall lidos. Yacht owners in designer sunglasses out-snobbed one another in half a dozen languages. But where was the little café I visited every night because it had the only serviceable loo in a town still suffering from wartime neglect and pre-war plumbing? Where was the cheerfully tousled hotel where my wife Pat and I had a room for 25p a night, the snug harbour with its gaggle of fishing boats and the restaurant so close to the sea it all but swirled around the table legs? Swept away by prosperity. I went looking for them all the same.

Hens used to roost in the bushes surrounding that restaurant and the patron, a smiling, whitehaired man with a nut-brown face, made superb omelettes from their eggs. It was behind the harbour's pier - but where was the pier and the harbour? All I could find was a vast marine centre. I watched a multi-decked ship, appropriately the Napoleon Bonapar t e, approaching. A cruise liner? No - a ferry. I thought back to the fussy little ship that ferried us from Marseille to Ajaccio in 1948. We travelled first class on the way over because the fares were so cheap; fourth class on the return because we were so broke, bedding down on the deck with the Mediterranean flinging spray at us. Then Pat found a haven down below in an area where passengers were forbidden. We stayed, however, and next morning a smiling steward gave us coffee.

I found my pier at last. My restaurant had been replaced by shiny establishments with highsounding names: Le Grill, Le Cristal, Le Yacht. Better luck with my restaurant with the working loo - Le Mango opposite the Mairie, its modesty making it conspicuous still. I had a lovely entrecôte with mushrooms and salad for £8 there - and the loo was still pristine.

I struck more old gold driving to my hotel four miles away. The scenery changed; lidoland disappeared and beneath my hotel window I saw a replica of that beach behind the pier. I scampered down, plunged into the Med and floated on my back with memories dancing in the sun all round me. Next day, heading for Corte, I spotted jagged mountains, like dragons' teeth, in the distance.

Fifty years ago I had taken a terrifying trip up them in a rickety bus along a corkscrew cart track fringed by a precipice. This time I went through those teeth like dental floss on a broad, smooth road. Corte had not changed much. I climbed to its highest point, the Eagle's Nest on top of the Citadel, its ancient fortress, and gazed down at brave houses clinging to the sides of a gorge.

My hotel, the Dominique Colonna, spurned fast food. It fed me when I arrived grossly late for lunch and for supper served a huge tureen of vegetable soup, then a tureen of tender lamb and a third of fresh vegetables.

Next day I drove to Cap Corse, a slender finger jutting north, and paused at Nonza, an amiable village on a cliff. Locals said I could reach its beach down 260 stone steps, but I settled for St Giulia's shrine just 140 down. Roman soldiers, a plaque announced, had ordered her to renounce her Christian faith. When she refused they tore her asunder and threw the pieces into the sea.

I cheered up when I found Centuri-Port. Boats in its harbour had not only their names painted on their bows, but the names of the restaurants their owners supplied with fish. I chose Madame Macciota's and had fine lobster for less than £10.

After that, I headed south for La Corniche, my hotel in the mountains just north of Bastia, there ending my nostalgic journey. Any regrets? It would have been wonderful to meet my friend in his restaurant-on-sea again, but difficult as he would be more than 120 years old - and the hens who roosted in his bushes a little over the hill, too.

Way to go

Alan Bestic travelled to Corsica with VFB Holidays (01242 240310; www.vfbholidays.co.uk). A seven-night package costs £490pp B&B, including car hire, travel insurance and return flights to Bastia.

The late spring sunshine escape