Ajaccio

I haven’t been there personally, so take my suggestion with a grain of salt, but if I were going there, I would check out all of the historical Napoleon stuff since that’s his birthplace.

Yes; definitely plan to!

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My favourite experience in Ajaccio was taking a boat ride to les Calanches de Piana which is a beautiful natural UNESCO World Heritage site a bit further up the coast- you get to see some interesting rock formations and our boat stopped for lunch at a restaurant overlooking a very scenic beach (which was full of cows!). The town is nice but if I had one day this is how I would spend most of it.

It would be helpful if you said that it is a cruise stop, and what month of the year it is. We were there on a Windstar ship, in low shoulder season, maybe October or November. There was little "exciting" to see, even on the ship's half-day tour. So the reply mentioning a UNESCO natural site sounds good to me - as long as you can be back before the ship's deadline. I wonder if it is busier at the height of the summer resort season?

It certainly does get busy during summers - Corsica is very popular among French (and other European) tourists (not so much for Americans).; it's also highly "seasonal."

The boat trips typically take all day - departing quite early in the morning, returning sometime in the afternoon (there are several outfits that run them, most leave from the main waterfront which is just up from the cruise ship port, and easy to find). We looked at doing one of the boat tours but decided it would just take too much of our time (we were not on a cruise ship) - and besides, we were headed that way a few days later after we left Ajaccio, so having other options on our own, we didn't prioritize the boat trip. That said, yes, the Calanches de Piana (and the area around there) are spectacular and definitely worth a look - but that's considerable distance from Ajaccio, so require some time.

If on a cruise, yes, of course you would need to take a hard look at the timing.

Most definitely visit Ajaccio if you are into seeing history and realia connected to Napoleon and his family. One could even make an effective argument (historically) that seeing Ajaccio is paramount if one wanted to see that history connected to the Emperor.

How do plan on reaching Corsica? By plane or the ferry from Toulon or Marseilles.