Ajaccio: Napoleon's Corsica

Napoleon Bonaparte's birthplace, Ajaccio preserves his family home and baptistery before all else, a port overlooking one of Corsica's most photographed archipelagos.

The compact center around the harbor and Napoleon's birthplace is easily explored on foot.

In the Maison Bonaparte, Napoleon was born in 1769: the family home, today a museum, preserves furnishings and documents from the future emperor's childhood.

A few steps away, the Cathedral of Ajaccio, in Baroque style, houses the baptismal font where Napoleon was baptized in 1771, still visible inside today.

Continuing, one reaches Place d'Austerlitz, dominated by a statue of Napoleon depicted with the appearance of a Roman emperor, in a pose that openly recalls classical iconography.

Towards sunset, a boat excursion leads to the Sanguinary Islands, an archipelago off Ajaccio whose name would derive from the reddish colour taken by granite at sunset.

The Bonaparte family was not particularly wealthy: Napoleon's birthplace, while today an important tourist destination, reflects the status of a modest Corsican noble family of that era.

The Sanguinaire Islands change color distinctly precisely at sunset, when the slanting light ignites the reddish granite of the rocks, giving the archipelago its most plausible name.