CALVI TODAY
The wind festival
Every year the Wind Festival takes to the streets of Calvi in the dying tourist season and offers a varied and prestigious programme. Festiventu gathers some 600 personalities who bring their knowledge and talent to participate, each one in his or her own field, to a vast platform of exchanges and encounters mixing culture, entertainment and debate. Writers, researchers, sociologists, politicians, doctors, environment specialists discuss and exchange views on themes crucial for our future. The musical programme is also eclectic and attracts some of the greatest talents from France and abroad. All musical genres are present, from rock to traditional music to chanson. La Fête en l’air, a site dedicated to the environment has become a meeting point for the public wishing to acquire an education on the preservation of the planet. Many families come daily to visit and discover new sports, new energies, new trades and new arts. The Ecojolie house, run by professionals, is aimed at introducing new ecological means of construction and materials.
CALVI AND CYCLING
Calvi, like most other big Corsican localities, frequently hosted stages of the Tour of Corsica. Already, in 1936, Italian Florindo Eufemi had won a stage in the city of Columbus. While the race had not stopped in town since 2007, it returned to Calvi in May for a stage won by. When he visited Calvi in December, 2012, Bernard Hinault could realise just how much its people were excited to welcome the Tour.
PLACES TO SEE
Fortifications of the citadelThe construction started in 13th century and was completed in the 16th century. The ramparts are composed of three bastions (San Giorgio, Malfetano and Teghiale) with curtain walls. The citadel and the Tower of Salt are national heritage and belong to the municipality.
La Pinède
The most famous beach in Calvi can be reached in the summer by the small train known as trinighellu. It is named after a pinewood in the Eastern part of town. The beach is lined with restaurants.
Palace of the bishops of Sagone Dating from the 16th century, it was the house of Laurent Giubegga, one of Napoleon’s brothers in law, who found shelter in it in 1793. It is now a private residence hosting a famous bar on the ground floor. Winston Churchill and Serge Gainsbourg are among the many celebrities to have drunk a glass there since 1935.
Christopher Columbus house
See above
Cathedral Saint John the Baptist
From the 13th century, it is in baroque style. Restored in 1570 after a siege by the French and the Turks, it is located in the upper town inside the old Genoese fortress. From 1625, the cathedral became the residence of the bishops of Sagone when they left Vico to flee the menace of Barbary pirates.