Cycling in Corsica: Ajaccio - Calvi

You make your own way to Ajaccio, Corsica's capital and the city where Napoleon Bonaparte was born. Leave your bags at the hotel and head out into the old town. Visit the citadel and stroll through the narrow alleys, where restaurants and bars fill up as the balmy Mediterranean evening approaches. Ajaccio is lively but never stressful – a great place to adjust to the island's pace before the week in the saddle begins.

You leave Ajaccio along the coast, but soon the road turns inland on the D61 and you take on the toughest section of the entire west coast, with short but steep climbs. The town quickly gives way to maquis, the dense Corsican scrubland that smells wonderfully of aromatic herbs. At the Bay of Sagone there are plenty of restaurants for a break. It's now that the morning's efforts feel well worth it. The final stretch to Cargèse, on the coastal road that winds along the jagged coastline, is the most beautiful of the day – and the destination is one of Corsica's finest villages.

From Cargèse you pedal 10 km inland through a secluded valley full of maquis, gaining almost 500 metres in altitude. After the pass you roll down to Piana, listed among France's most beautiful villages. Next up is the Calanques de Piana, perhaps the island's most spectacular stretch of road. The road hovers dizzyingly high above a chaos of red granite formations that plunge straight into the sea – feel free to stop often and admire this spectacle of nature. The day ends with a long freewheel down to the harbour village of Porto, surrounded by the glowing red cliffs of the west coast.

Today you leave the rugged coast for a lush and dramatic valley, where the only traffic jams on the road are caused by cows, pigs, sheep, goats and the occasional stubborn donkey. Before the mountain village of Ota, we highly recommend locking up your bike and taking a short walk through the Spelunca Gorge, wedged between tall granite walls and with natural pools for a refreshing dip (allow around 2 extra hours). If your legs have more to give, you can continue the steady climb up to the genuine village of Evisa, or all the way to Col de Vergio – Corsica's highest road pass. Today you choose between three loops, all starting and finishing in Porto:

• Easy: Porto – Ota – Porto, 19 km, 450 m up and down
• Medium: Porto – Evisa – Ota – Porto, 34 km, 1,000 m up and down
• Challenging: Porto – Evisa – Col de Vergio – Ota – Porto, 46 km, 1,640 m up and down

From Porto you continue north along the coastal road that hangs spectacularly above the Mediterranean. You pass the sleepy villages of Partinello and Curzo before reaching Col de la Croix. Here you can lock up your bike and walk the Sentier du Facteur, the postman's path, down to a secluded beach for a dip (about 1.5 hours round trip). After the pass the road descends into a secluded valley and then climbs to Bocca di Palmarella at just over 400 metres. From there awaits a long, winding and very beautiful descent down to Galéria.

From Galéria you pedal north along a secluded, winding coastal road, with steady ups and downs and the sea constantly in view. The pebble beach at Argentella, about 14 km into the stage, is a perfect spot for rest and a swim, and there's a restaurant along the way. Just before Calvi, if you feel like it and have the energy left, you can make a detour up to the Notre-Dame de la Serra chapel. The reward is an outstanding view over the Bay of Calvi.

There's no escaping the first challenging 13 kilometres towards Calenzana, with a mild but constant uphill gradient on long straight stretches. But once in Calenzana, the starting point of the legendary GR20 hiking trail, it feels as though you can almost touch the island's 2,000-metre-high peaks. You continue pedalling along small country roads past villages so small they no longer even have names, past 500-year-old olive groves and up to Montegrosso with sweeping views over both sea and mountains. Then it's just a matter of rolling down towards the plain and the sea again after an excursion into the interior of Corsica.

The trip ends after breakfast. Be sure to spend some time in Calvi before moving on: the historic town centre, the Genoese citadel watching over the town, and the kilometre-long white sandy beach with turquoise water are all worth a few hours or an extra night.