My Honeymoon In Corsica

Written by Coco Rocha for Huffington Post

This Spring my fiancé James and I decided to have a fairy tale wedding across the Atlantic in a castle in the Loire Valley of France. Since this was to be a destination wedding we soon decided we didn't want to back-track halfway around the world for our honeymoon. James suggested Corsica as a possibility. Neither of us had been there and, to be honest, I'd never even heard of it! To me the name "Corsica" sounded like a made-up world like Pandora, where the Na'vi live. To my surprise the country was indeed real and in fact very beautiful in all the pictures I saw doing research. When we got there, we realized we didn't even know the half of it.

Corsica is the most mountainous island of the Mediterranean due to the fact that it was created out of a series of huge volcanic eruptions. Picture dramatic cliffs falling into the ocean and rich green mountains rising over the horizon. For the most part Corsica is untouched compared to similar islands I've been to. Nearly half of the land is devoted to nature reserves so driving across the island you get the feeling that this is your own private place. On a road trip going nowhere in particular, James and I set off in our little rental car and hugged the tiny mountain roads, making stops at old abandoned stone farm houses and ice cold mountain waterfalls where we stripped down and swam. We basically saw no one else around most of the time, exactly what a couple on their honeymoon hopes for. When we weren't exploring the island by car, James and I stayed in a gorgeous northern coastal town called Ille Rousse. Within two days we felt completely at home there, roaming the winding cobble stone streets for new restaurants to try. We found the food was mostly a French-Italian mix of pastas, seafood and pizza, and we greedily devoured it all. Both James and I have always hated olives but, for some odd reason, we dared each other to try one in Corsica and we were instantly hooked! I don't know what it was about those olives, but they were amazing and when we came back to New York and tried an olive here, it just wasn't the same.

Corsica is very much your own experience. No one is going to hold your hand to guide you or to hold you back. In all the beaches we lounged on there were no signs posted "Do Not Swim Here" which was both very freeing and a little scary. I get rather nervous when I don't know what else is swimming around me so my snorkel helped me to assure myself that Jaws was not actually right underneath me. The ocean, by the way, was crystal clear and a gorgeous shade of turquoise. I truly loved Corsica, and that funny name will forever be associated with my beautiful honeymoon and first two weeks as a married woman.

We've said we are going back there for our 10-year anniversary.

XOXO COCO