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The grotto of Casone

Ajaccio, the grotto of Casone
Ajaccio, the grotto of Casone

The myth of the great statesman and fine military strategist is also fed by the image of a youth who, in moments of solitude, retired to a romantic grotto at the edge of the city: in the level ground of Casone, in what today has become a piazza dedicated to the Battle of Austerlitz, a few large monoliths resting one on top of another among centuries–old olive trees carve out a narrow recess where according to legend the young emperor went to meditate.
The terrain belonged to the Jesuits but was purchased by the imperial family. In the nineteenth century, the grotto was left to itself, as the Scot Thomasina Campbell recorded in her notes on Corsica (1872), also hoping for the development of the site: “It would still be possible to surround these magnificent blocks of granite with a gracious garden, making them worthy of the name they bear”. This was a wish that would be fulfilled a few years later, leaving us with a place of limpid charm.

The grotto of Casone
Place d’Austerlitz
Ajaccio

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