Terra Nova

Looming above the harbor, Bastia’s stern-walled citadel was built between the 15th and 17th centuries for the city’s Genoese masters. Known as the Terra Nova, despite looking much older than the lower town, it’s largely residential and uncommercialized. The amber-hued Palais des Gouverneurs now houses the Musée de Bastia, while the majestic Cathédrale Ste-Marie and the rococo Église Ste-Croix, home to a mysterious black-oak crucifix found in the sea in 1428, stand side by side a few streets south.