La Villa Calvi

Though nominally French, this mountainous Mediterranean island is close to Italy’s mainland and was ruled by the Republic of Genoa for half a millennium. Corsica is a unique place, and counts among the Mediterranean’s better-kept secrets. Check in at a hotel like Villa Calvi and you’ll understand why the locals might prefer that the rest of us never quite get the memo, flocking instead to Capri or Mallorca or Mykonos.

Located in the island’s northwest, a few minutes’ drive from the town of Calvi, La Villa Calvi is a quiet getaway with a simple, sophisticated aesthetic. These guest rooms weren’t meant to make a splash — spacious but minimalist, they’re designed for unwinding. Each is simply outfitted in crisp whites and earth tones, featuring a seating area with a flat-screen TV, an iPod dock, and a private balcony, many of which face the sea.

But the real draw here is outside: the hotel has not one or two — or three, or four — but five swimming pools. Quite a lot when you consider that there are only 49 guest rooms. The owners seem to understand, much as the French seem to understand that there’s a particular aperitif appropriate to any given social occasion, that one size does not fit all. So there’s a pool for swimming laps, and one that’s suited to children, and one, the knockout infinity pool, that’s just meant for floating around and enjoying the view, said aperitif balanced nearby on a chaise longue with your book and your wide-brimmed hat.

If the five pools don’t cut it, La Villa Calvi also features a soothing white spa with a Turkish bath, a small fitness center, and access to a private beach. La Table by La Villa, the hotel’s headlining restaurant, has a Michelin star, if you’re into that sort of thing. This is France, after all, even if you might have thought, for an absent-minded moment before departure, that you were actually going to Italy.

How to get there: La Villa Calvi is a short car ride (just over 7 km) from Sainte-Catherine Airport in Calvi. Alternatives include Bastia–Poretta Airport, 96 km by car (via N193, N1197, and N197) and Ajaccio Napoleon Bonaparte Airport, 161 km by car (also via N193, N1197, and N197).