La Montagne des Orgues

Several introductory and musical tours to discover the ancient heritage and history of Balagne: Ghjunsani, Haute Balagne... but also Castagniccia, Vallée de l'Asco and Ghjuvellina. We'll open the doors of rural tradition for you, and you'll understand the messages of small Baroque churches, and their historic organs will ring out for you in these festive places.

HIGH BALAGNE
Open to the sea, the rich Balagne of olive trees, vines, almond trees, orange trees...and organs, clings its villages to the balcony of the mountains, above its wide, luminous plains. The beautiful granite houses of the notables, the prosperity of the churches and numerous convents, the roads lined with walls and chapels, the herds, the threshing floors and strawbales sing an ancient and multiple polyphony: the history of the humble, the lords, the religious, the invaders, the merchants... You'll hear organs of astonishing diversity, with a few surprises in store!
In Balagne, a sign of wealth, almost every church, however small, was equipped with an organ in the 18th and 19th centuries...

RUSTINU and CASTAGNICCIA
In the heart of schistose Corsica (San Pedrone 1767m), a mountainous region where the winds of history have blown. The PAOLI family was famous for its involvement in the wars of independence in the 18th century, and in Morosaglia, Pascal's birthplace contains his ashes... Countless villages with their admirable Baroque churches and frescoed chapels emerge from a sea of chestnut trees, bearing witness to a once industrious and structured life. You'll hear three very different instruments, including Corsica's oldest organ, at Piedicroce (1619).

CORTENAIS and GHJUVELLINA
First, on the foothills of Monte Padre, the ancient Pieve de Caccia and its dreamlike San Francescu convent... Then, under the spires of the Rundinaia, the road winds through Mediterranean mountain vegetation, off the main roads. This is a rugged region, often wild and grandiose, steeped in legends, where you'll discover treasures of vitality in the villages clinging to the steep rock: their small churches with their abundant, naïve decorations certainly don't breed melancholy! Corte asserts its role as Corsica's capital and lives to the rhythm of its University and Corsican Museum. The 18th-century organ in Corte's parish church is sumptuous!