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Camping U-Furu, Corsica

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We fancied Corsica for our summer holidays this year, and booked our second week in a small stone 'cabinetti' at this site near Porto Veccio. 
Has anyone been here ? There's not a great deal of info on the web, although it was briefly mentioned here by Jacques back in 2014.

This is the first time we've been to a naturist site as such , despite many years going nude on foreign beaches. I was attracted by the simplicity of the site and long stretch of river / waterfalls. Mrs Jonny was a little hesitant at first, but it's a small site with plenty of privacy and nudity doesn't appear to be enforced. Anyway, she's a sucker for waterfalls so I think we'll be fine  🙂

 
Posted : December 12, 2018 12:02 am
Jacques
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There's not a great deal of info on the web, although it was briefly mentioned here by Jacques back in 2014.

Indeed I remember mentioning U Furu, although we never visited it ourselves - we had kids with us then, and La Chiappa on the coast with sand beaches seemed a better choice.
Some people say that U Furu is paradise. It mostly caters for naturists who enjoy wide spaces and not too much noise in a large resort which never feels  (and never is) crowded.
Expect the water in the stream and the waterfalls to be coolish, as the water comes from high up: do not forget that central Corsica is basically a mountain and that it has several peaks over 8,000 feet high.
It is not far from Porto Vecchio, a lively little town, and from the tiny Figari-sud-Corse airport.
It would be a pity not to have a car available, as U Furu is great for driving around, for example south to Bonifacia and its site overlooking the sea. But take my words for it, as soon as you drive into the hills or the mountains (which means just about everywhere except on the coastal plain to the east), any size of car seems too large and too wide for the mountain roads!

 
Posted : December 12, 2018 12:06 pm
philmacavity
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There's not a great deal of info on the web, although it was briefly mentioned here by Jacques back in 2014.

Indeed I remember mentioning U Furu, although we never visited it ourselves - we had kids with us then, and La Chiappa on the coast with sand beaches seemed a better choice.
Some people say that U Furu is paradise. It mostly caters for naturists who enjoy wide spaces and not too much noise in a large resort which never feels  (and never is) crowded.
Expect the water in the stream and the waterfalls to be coolish, as the water comes from high up: do not forget that central Corsica is basically a mountain and that it has several peaks over 8,000 feet high.
It is not far from Porto Vecchio, a lively little town, and from the tiny Figari-sud-Corse airport.
It would be a pity not to have a car available, as U Furu is great for driving around, for example south to Bonifacia and its site overlooking the sea. But take my words for it, as soon as you drive into the hills or the mountains (which means just about everywhere except on the coastal plain to the east), any size of car seems too large and too wide for the mountain roads!

And bear in mind that driving in the Corsican mountains means what seemed like only ‘a short drive away” actually turns out to take way, way longer!! As in 4 hours to drive from Bastia to Ajaccio, even though it was on what looked like a main road, the mountain passes and switchbacks took for ever to negotiate!!!

 
Posted : December 12, 2018 5:23 pm
Jacques
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And bear in mind that driving in the Corsican mountains means what seemed like only ‘a short drive away” actually turns out to take way, way longer!! As in 4 hours to drive from Bastia to Ajaccio, even though it was on what looked like a main road, the mountain passes and switchbacks took for ever to negotiate!!!

Absolutely!
I remember once we took a tiny road - we shouldn't have, definitely not. This seemed to go up and on for ever, at times between rocks and a sheer drop - and it finally arrived in the hamlet whose name had been signposted at the bottom, consisting of a single farmhouse standing just at the end of the road with a closed gate across the road  🙁
In such cases when you have to make a u-turn on a steep road that seems to be just about as wide as your car is long, I can assure you that you'll regret every addiitonal inch in the length of your car  😉

 
Posted : December 12, 2018 5:38 pm
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Thanks both  🙂
I visited Corsica five years ago on a walking holiday, so appreciate the narrow winding roads ! Flying to Bastia so will be hiring a small car. It's a beautiful island, and I promised my wife that I'd take her there some day, so here we are ! 
Also staying a week airBnB in Corse Nord, near St Florent. Some of the beaches look unreal with their white sand and clear blue sea. Is there opportunity for going nude on the beaches on the north coast, particularly around the Desert des Agraites ?

 
Posted : December 14, 2018 12:54 am
Jacques
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I quite agree that Corsica is a beautiful island - one of the most beautiful places on earth if you ask me! But then you probably know the place better than I do if you want on a hiking holiday there (did you follow the GR 20 footpath?).
Most naturist beaches seem somehow to be in the southern half of Corsica, or along the mostly uninterestingly flat Eastern coast.
I have never heard of naturist beaches in "le désert des Agriates". Beaches in that area need a four-wheel drive vehicle to reach them, but they can also be reached by boat from Saint-Florent.
Whatever you do, remember that naturism is not in any way as well accepted in Corsica as it is in mainland France.

 
Posted : December 14, 2018 5:33 pm
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Thanks for the advice Jacques. We love seeking out of the way places and will use discretion when we find those elusive spots.

My 2013 walking holiday started in Calacuccia, five days in the mountains heading roughly west to Porto via Eta and Ovisa some of it on the GR20 which was busy with fit middle aged French folk and a handful of extreme sportifs who try to run the 180km train in two or three days  😮 .
I was the only British person in a group of French and Belgians and my poor French was only slightly better than the others' combined efforts at English,  but I had a great few days nevertheless.

There are weekly flights from my home city of Southampton to Bastia which is very convenient, although I believe FlyBE are in dire financial trouble , so fingers crossed they don't go under or pull out of that route before then.

 
Posted : December 15, 2018 2:56 pm
philmacavity
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When we flew there last year in September the flight was almost entirely full of British hikers! The wait for baggage at Bastia airport turned into a bun fight as rucksacks tend to all look the same when they appear on the conveyor!!
We found a beach near Galeria that had a few nude sunbathers but they were mostly hikers as that spot is at the end of one of the long distance footpaths with no roads in or out of the place!! We got there using the tender on the boat we were crewing at the time. We also got a couple of hours of nude sunbathing in on the beach right at the end of the bay that Calvi sits on, but we were very careful not to get up to go swimming as there were a few textiles about 250 meters away!!
We never got to the eastern coast where the majority of nude beaches are located.

 
Posted : December 19, 2018 3:35 pm
Jacques
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Galeria is one of my dream beaches in Corsica! No naturists when I was there, but plenty of toplessness - and, as you can see, a few rucksacks. Boats just run aground there, which adds to the feeling of real adventure!

 
Posted : December 19, 2018 4:37 pm
philmacavity
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Galeria is one of my dream beaches in Corsica! No naturists when I was there, but plenty of toplessness - and, as you can see, a few rucksacks. Boats just run aground there, which adds to the feeling of real adventure!

It wasn’t the main beach at Galeria, it was a small beach about a mile to the south, we spotted it as we sailed in to spend the night there, we motored our to it the next morning, it was deserted then but a few walkers started to turn up later. Maybe it was because we were the first there and were naked that prompted them to strip off too, but I suspect that it was a beach favoured bu naturists anyway.

 
Posted : December 19, 2018 4:50 pm
martin tacey
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Galeria is one of my dream beaches in Corsica! No naturists when I was there, but plenty of toplessness - and, as you can see, a few rucksacks. Boats just run aground there, which adds to the feeling of real adventure!

Do not know how old the photo is Jacques but how unusual to see some guys wearing skimpy trunks as apposed to those ridiculous flapping boardshorts people seem to wear these days.

MJ Tacey

 
Posted : December 20, 2018 5:32 pm
Jacques
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Do not know how old the photo is Jacques but how unusual to see some guys wearing skimpy trunks as apposed to those ridiculous flapping boardshorts people seem to wear these days. If you look carefully you will see that - for obvious reasons - I do not have the tell-tale white areas next to the trunk that others have

Quite. This photo goes back a few years. The chap standing with his back to the camera is actually me, with a lot more hair than i have now. At least, being a naturist means that you do not have the white areas around the trunks that others sport!
I see that the boat is called "Christophe Colomb II". Columbus was Genoese by birth, and since Corsica was in those days occupied by the Genoese, there is a theory, much supported locally, that Columbus was actually born in Corsica, more precisely in Calvi where you can see the house where he might have been born. You do not have to be believe this, but you must never seem to doubt it when talking to Corsicans!

 
Posted : December 20, 2018 11:48 pm
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hi we went to Corsica in may 2018. it is beautiful. as previous people have mentioned naturism isn't widely practised in Corsica. we stayed on a textile  siet ( yelloh campoloro) which was lovely. we drove further south to 2 naturist campsites Bagheera and Rive bella. Bagheera seems more up market than rive bella. the lovely owners of rive bella let us visit as day visitors for free as it was low season. the beach there was lovely and the accommodation was simple and clean some were directly on te beach. however there is no pool there.

what ever google maps say it will take to drive somewhere double it. the road from Bastia airport is like a UK A road that goes through every town village on the way. so your speed on the road is 90Kmh and 50 kmh through the towns. getting anywhere takes a long time.
would definitely go to Corsica again.

 
Posted : January 8, 2019 10:25 pm
Jacques
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the road from Bastia airport is like a UK A road that goes through every town village on the way. so your speed on the road is 90Kmh and 50 kmh through the towns. getting anywhere takes a long time.

Remember that now the top speed on French roads is 80 kmh (50 mph), not 90 kmh, except when otherwise indictated.

 
Posted : January 8, 2019 11:14 pm
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I found a short feature on U-Furu here, starts about seven and a half minutes in. Difficult to tell how old the video is, it was posted in 2018 but the quality looks like it was made on an old camcorder.  Can't follow much of the dialog unfortunately, but I'll persist with a few more listens.

 
Posted : April 20, 2019 10:54 pm
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