Driving from Ajaccio Corsica

Never been to Corsica, and although the town sounds delightful, we love to get around and explore the countryside. Our ship is Oosterdamn and we are in port from 8:00 until 5:00. Our plan is to drive from Ajaccio to Propraino, seems it will take around one hour, which seems doable? Anyone have opinions to share. Really appreciate ANY and all advice

Hasn't anyone done something in this port beside ship excursions and walking around town? Help please on ways to see countryside

Depends how much driving you have done in France/Italy as the Corsicana roads are not brilliant and the local driving challenging. I put Italy as well as France as in many ways the mentality is more like Italian than mainland France, road signs are variable or missing and what you might expect to take 20 mins may well take double this. As a Brit I have driven widely in Europe both my own car and hire cars and found the 2week holiday in Corsica beautiful , its a great undiscovered island but the driving some of the most challenging I have done.

Another thought in high summer at popular places/ towns the parking can be awkward and or expensive.

I've driven all around Corsica. I think your first challenge will be finding a car rental agency near the port and you might have go to the airport (rented/leased cars on the mainland so never had to rent on the island).

I'd give driving from Ajaccio to Propriano as more like 1 1/2 hours: Roads are 3D (as in windy and also climb/drop a lot). Traffic in Ajaccio is also fairly slow, and that was off-season when a lot of people migrate to the continent for work.

And if you are going in summer, the beach road is likely to be much slower (we were there in February and October). I wouldn't go to Propriano (spent 3 nights there for various reasons last autumn) for the day but would go to Filitosa which is before. The nice parts of Propriano are in Campo Morro which is a bear to get to (road (singular) is narrow and windy and likely to be painfully slow in summer).

Not sure where I'd recommend going for the day - given that you're there in summer - other than Ajaccio. It is a most beautiful of islands and deserves 2-3 weeks by itself, out of season of course.