Travel: A taste of France off the coast of Italy: Michael Durham flies south to explore by car a Corsica of gorges and mountains, goat's cheese and homemade orange wine

SMALL and friendly auberges, the tour operator had promised, calling to mind neat French inns with cobbled courtyards and trellis dripping with bougainvillaea, straight out of the Stella Artois commercial. There would be a smiling patron with a broad moustache carrying cold beers and flasks of vin rouge. This was, after all, Corsica, the most southerly of French departements, and it was springtime. So what on earth were we doing in a large seaside complex with a kidney-shaped swimming-pool and upwards of 50 rooms?

We had chosen a fly-drive holiday to this least-known of the French regions, braving the rigours of travel with a two-year-old but enchanted by what the island promised. Corsica, birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte (and, some say, Christopher Columbus), an island evocative of banditry, fierce vendettas, wild boar and coarse red wine. We knew it would be mountainous. We prayed that if Sicily in May was anything to go by, it would be strewn with spring flowers. But would it be French, Italian, or both? And what about the auberges?

It did not take long to discover that Corsica has a foot in each camp. Geographically it is closer to Italy; for seven centuries it was ruled by Pisans and Genoese, and to this day all true Corsicans have Italian surnames and a half-Genoese dialect.

Administratively and gastronomically it is French, and has been for the past 200 years. You will find them drinking cafe creme and playing boules in the square; not that this is acceptable to the Corsican National Front; attacks on local officials occur from time to time. A flavour of the Italian mezzogiorno keeps breaking through: the week we were there, all the post offices were closed because bandits had kidnapped the local postmistress.

'Small and Friendly Auberges' was the name of our tour operator's go-as-you-please package: a kind of bed-and-breakfast travelcard that invited us to spend the first night at a pre-booked auberge, before choosing stops from a list of another 23 hostelries. But what exactly is a 'small and friendly auberge'? My dictionary says an auberge is 'a public house for the lodging and entertainment of travellers, wayfarers, etc'.

We arrived at Calvi, in the north of the island, picked up a car at the airport and began our hunt for those welcoming taverns.

Corsica is undeniably pretty, and the northern Balagne district is breathtakingly beautiful, especially in spring when the roadside flowers bloom. You want mountains? There are plenty: early mornings were rewarded by vistas of Monte Grosso still capped with snow. Gorges? One day we drove through three that would have dwarfed Cheddar. Deep forests, sunny pastures, cliffs, castles? You only have to look around. And (for the two-year-old) there are endless sandy beaches.

One of the highlights turned out to be a trip by catamaran from Calvi around the rugged west coast to the Unesco World Heritage nature reserve at La Scandola, an area closed to footbound visitors, but magnificent when viewed from the sea. Ospreys flapped splendidly to and from their nests. Shoals of fish darted around the glass bottom of the boat.

The best way to prospect for those flower-bedecked country inns is by car. Our first stop, at a village called Monticello, came close to the ideal: friendly, clean and picturesque. Next day we moved down to Algajola, a cute seaside town with a ruined Genoese fort, some quaintly accommodated souvenir shops and an attractive sandy beach. And here we discovered that, in travel-agent- speak, a 50-room holiday complex can count as a 'small and friendly auberge'. The Hotel L'Ondine was more of a Holiday Inn than a country pub. Even so, it had local colour and we had no complaints.

Then we headed for the hills, and at Pioggiola, over a mountain pass in a forested glen, we found our first small and friendly auberge. So undemonstrative was the Auberge Aghjola that we could not even find the front door. There was nothing but a cluster of houses dug into a wooded hillside.

We had read about the auberge in the brochure - with a sceptical smirk: 'Joe and Elisabeth will befriend you without the least hesitation . . . Guests are invited to sit around a large table, near the fire, and Joe starts to set the pace for the evening with his pleasant jokes and stories about village life . . .' But le patron and his wife were genuine characters; there was a big room like a baronial hall, in the centre of which stood an enormous dining table; and at the appointed hour, the guests gathered round the fire to be served with homemade orange wine. Then everyone sat down for dinner.

And what a meal. Old-fashioned table d'hote: no choice, but plenty. Five courses, in fact: creamy vegetable soup, hare casseroled in red wine, white brocciu (a kind of goat's milk cheesecake soused with aquavit and sprinkled with sugar), a fine cheeseboard and apple tart.

As we ate, Joe embarked on his patter, setting everyone talking and laughing. Like us, the English couple opposite may not have understood much, but they went away well satisfied. Just as well, because they had confessed to being travel agents. Joe had better plant some bougainvillaea and grow a moustache. There will probably be a lot more English wayfarers in Corsica looking for small and friendly auberges.

The author travelled with Corsican Affair (071-385 8438) on its Corsica Fly-Drive 'Small and Friendly Auberges' scheme. He paid pounds 369 per person, for a week, including return flights, car with unlimited mileage and seven nights' b & b. The scheme does not operate at peak period (18 July-28 August).

(Photograph omitted)