Description
Millennia ago, two islets – which might well have been called Prisarella and Rondinara – lay off the coast. The sea, aided by its currents, deposited sand and pebbles which gradually formed the most idyllic of Corsican bays: Rondinara Cove. A perfect curve, set off by reddish rocks rising above the clear water. The two headlands of Prisarella and Rondinara seem to stand guard over this idyllic landscape, sometimes described as ‘the most beautiful beach in France’.
History
The geomorphological formation of Rondinara Bay took place gradually, shaped by sea currents carrying sediment. It was the southern island that was first connected to the coast by a tombolo – a sand and gravel spit – during the last marine regression. Two other tombolos formed at the same time around Punta di Prisarella, enclosing the bay and creating, in the background, what is now the Prisarella lagoon.
This aesthetically ‘perfect’ site is partly built up: there are a few holiday villas, one of which, formerly privately owned, now houses the technical centre of the Bouches de Bonifacio International Marine Park.
Habitats and Flora
La Rondinara is renowned for its sandy seabeds covered with Posidonia and Cymodocea seagrass beds. These fragile habitats teem with life: these two flowering plants with long leaves produce oxygen and provide a home for numerous species. They are a marvellous nursery for young fish. In the lagoon, the Ruppia beds are no less rich and serve as a food source for a multitude of birds.
Large-fruited junipers and African tamarisk grow thickly on the dunes and in the maquis. The granite cliffs are home to tree-like euphorbia and white asparagus. But above all, the flora of Rondinara teems with plants bearing strange or unfamiliar names, so unassuming and yet so precious: the Corsican Antinoria, a grass endemic to Corsica; the Sicilian forget-me-not, whose tiny blue flowers are lost amongst a cluster of long leaves; the veiled isoet; and the single-flowered sea-sweep.