Welcome to the A-Listers' Secret Island

Date: 27 June 2015 Page: 30,31 Circulation: 399915 Readership: 1155000 Size (Cm2): 1717 AVE: 52334.16 Display Rate: (£/cm2): 30.48

Mediterranean Welcome to the A-listers’ secret island The isleofCavallo off Corsica has lovely beaches, great diving and one chic hotel. No wonder Beyoncéloves it, says SeanThomas boat from Figari airport in Corsica) yet iece together your perfect feels like it is on the other side of the globe: island.Itmight have French in a yearned-for world where there isn’t cooking, Italian grace and much to do, in the nicest possible way. styling or perhaps a hint of And we’re here to do just that. Spanish sexiness. What else? On our first morning at the Hotel & Spa How aboutaclear, warm, des Pêcheurs (the only going concern on Seychellois sea that unrollsits Cavallo, apart from a smattering of villas Placy waves on to gleaming deserted that can be rented from time to time beaches: because this island is private. and a couple of independent eateries), It’sjust a dream, of course. Or is it? Let me I approach Giuseppe. He’s head barman at introduce you to Cavallo — sometimes the hotel’sShore Club, an agreeably affable called the Mustique of the Med — a flat, place, with its bowered sunbeds and its rocky, sunny,myrtle and rosemary- tables pitched so close to the waves that perfumed island off southern Corsica. you can practically eat your salad niçoise Owned by a syndicate of Italian billion- while you paddle. aires, this jagged, mile-wide chunk of “So what shall we do this afternoon, demi-paradise is a mere two hours from Giuseppe? What do you suggest?” Heathrow (and half an hour by taxi and Th h i Gi h H )

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Thecharming Giuseppe shrugs. He derstand. Groupers are looksatthejade-meets-sapphire sea. big fish, maybe a metre “Ahhh. You can swim? Maybe you can long. A school of them is dive.” Another shrug. “Then maybe swim an impressive sight. again.” Moreover, in the “Apart from that?” coral-fringed under- “Eat is good here.” water canyons of He’s right. Eat is good here. The Shore Merouville, they are so Club has an Italian ambience as well as a plentiful and so tame faint Ibizan buzz. Think chillout music and that they swim up and nude sunbathing in the next cove along. In headbutt your goggles. this mix, though, the attitude to food is Don’t despair if you can’t distinctly French. On Giuseppe’s advice scuba — the snorkelling is I have a simple carpaccio of fresh fish with also excellent. The water is so clear that visibility is up to 60 metres, so it’s rather a glass of chilled Corsican rosé. It’s delicious. Theseafoodshouldbeexcellentbecause like swimming in a vast pool of vodka. In the surrounding seas are special. Cavallo the shallows the little fish dance around (part of France) is one of the islands of the your hands, making you feel like an under- Lavezzi archipelago, andliesinaprotected water medieval saint, gifted with the marine environment, shared with nearby language of sticklebacks. Sardinia (part of Italy). No further Swimming, diving, snorkelling and eat- development is allowed on Cavallo itself ing splendid seafood. What else? Well, the (Corsican nationalists firebombed a villa spa is jolly nice. While I am partying with in the 1990s as a protest against invaders). the groupers my girlfriend has a “really On the surrounding islands, no settlement enjoyable” hot-stone massage, with an is allowed at all. emphasis on local stones. Add in the absence of polluting industry, That may not sound so amazing, but — astiff and cleansing current through the like the seas around Cavallo — those ubi- Strait of Bonifacio and a quitous rocks beneath your sandalled feet ban on large-scale are special. Soft and rounded, they resem- fishing, and you have ble the rocks of the Seychelles. What’s some of the clearest more, at the Hoteldes Pêcheurs, where all waters in the Med of the large, soothing rooms have glorious iterranean, balconies with sea views, some of the with some larger boulders are used as features in the of the most rooms, right next to the minibar. amazing aquat- The rocks of Cavallo also playedarolein ic life. I’m in- the island’s history. The Romans came in troduced to the second century AD to quarry granite. that life by Sil- You can still see traces of the picks and vio, who runs shovels wielded by slaves. After the the hoteldiving Romans left, Cavallo was left to snooze under the Mediterranean sun right up to centre. From June to September Silvio the 1970s, when a Paris nightlife mogul lives in Cavallo; the rest of the time he turned it into a retreat for celebrities. is in Thailand (“I don’t like winter”). Sil- In its heyday as a hideaway, practically vio has dived in some of the most iconic everyone who was anyone took the ten- scuba sites on the globe and rates Cavallo minute boat ride from the Corsican main- in the top ten. Why? “Groupers!” he says. I’m yet to be per- suaded, mainly because I have no idea what a grouper is. Then, land to little Cavallo. Marcello Mastroian- when we scooch our dinghy ni, Catherine Deneuve and Petula Clark to a spot of blue water a kilo- summered here (Clark called Cavallo a metre offshore and dive to heaven on Earth, and said, “we lived like 20 metres, I begin to un- gypsies and washed in the sea”). Exiled d

princes and incognito artists came too. sharing, and including Now Cavallo is being revived. The hotel accommodation, and villas are being refurbished and the flights, transfers, and celebs are, accordingly, drifting back. two nights’ in-villa Some of the Monaco royal family have chef service. bought properties and Giuseppe tellsme that Alicia Keys and Beyoncé have been spotted. Naturally, this rockrose has a thorn. Corsica is an expensive place, and Cavallo is pricier still.Whether you eat at the hotel or the excellent Italian restaurant near the island’s tiny marina, you can pay three figures for a modest dinner. Hiring snor- kels or renting golf buggies — the best way of tootling around — is similarly costly. Then again, what price an empty mind? Because that is what Cavallo delivers. After two days, my cares fall away. I turn off my phone; I shove my laptop in its case. Strollingtothe next empty beach I stare at the sea and thesky, and Ithink:what shall I do next? Then I realise that the silence is everything. The aimlessness is perfect. Maybe I’ll take another swim. Or maybe I’ll sit in the sun, where the air is scented with wild rosemary, and wait happilyfor nothing to happen.

Need to know

Sean Thomas was a guest of Simpson Travel (020 8003 6557, simpsontravel.com), whichhasaweek at the Hotel & Spa des Pêcheurs from £2,146pp in September, rising to £4,496pp in August. This includes half-board accommodation, flights on the weekly Simpson British Airways charter into Corsica, and connections to Cavallo. Simpson also features villas on Cavallo, starting at £865pp in September rising to £1,750pp in August, based on ten

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Beyoncé, left, and Alicia Keys

5miles CORSICA

Porto t Vecchio Tyrrhenian Sea Bonifacio Cavallo

SARDINIA

One of the bays on the island of Cavallo, l above; a patio and a bedroom at the t Hotel & Spa des Pêcheurs, right y