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We can learn a lot about islands from the words they give us. ‘Maelstrom’ comes from Norway’s Lofoten Islands, where a violent whirlpool sucks whales into its vortex. ‘Taboo’ and ‘tattoo’ originate from Polynesia. And (according to the Cadogan Guide) what word does Corsica’s heritage bequeath us? ‘Vendetta’.

It’s not a good sign. This highest and greenest of Mediterranean islands could have given us words for multi-chromatic mountains of pink, green and white granite; sea cliffs of violent orange; teetering villages of pan-tiled chunky houses; flowering carpets of scented maquis and idyllic beaches of aquamarine waters. Instead we learn of its history of violent family feuds.

“Corsica is very safe, no-one steals; they just kill each other,” joked, Jeanne, my somewhat eccentric host at a small village hotel when I queried leaving valuables in her unlocked garage.

Fortunately, during a four-day visit to a friend who leads guided walking tours on the island, I escaped unscathed. Tourists are not targets.

The day after I’d left, my friend rang to tell me of a murder in her village – a dispute over rent that led to a car-chase and shooting.

The culture of violence simmers in the summer heat. There is a history of oppression of independence fighters – crushed to death on wagon wheels and hanged. Today, pro-independence graffiti is scrawled across signposts, obliterating French translations of Corsican place-names. Various factions mow each other down with machine guns. Bombs explode.

It is a tempestuous reminder of mortality and thus the preciousness of life. As is the scenery: Corsica is a land of vertiginous beauty where the mountains can be mercurial and unforgiving. A few years back, seven people died one summer’s day; climbing the highest peak, 2706m Monte Cinto, a freak blizzard overtook them. If you’re hiking in Corsica, be prepared.

Enough of this talk: my first memory of Corsica is stepping into a wall of heat suffused with the scent of herbal maquis. It was instant aromatherapy. We had stopped our air-conditioned hire-car to fill water bottles from a roadside spring. Clean mountain water gushed from a stone shrine, decorated with flowers and Catholic mementoes.

The island has abundant water tumbling from the mountains. Everywhere there are clear jade rivers with deep natural pools, surrounded by sun-warmed granite boulders. Plunging into the water after a day’s hike in the mountains is heaven.

The warm, gritty rock, the sound of a rushing river, the scent of thyme, lavender and juniper, the sight of craggy peaks, Laricio pines and lichen-covered rocks: Corsica is a multi-sensory experience. As for taste: there are fine Corsican wines; strongly flavoured honey; hand-pressed olive oil from ancient groves and ever-present charcuterie, smelling of damp dog, and not I have to say, to my liking.

In a four-night holiday, we stayed at two memorable hotels. Hotel Casa Balduina in Calacucchia is a simple house with eight plain rooms, some with views over the reservoir below. Jeanne, the rotund owner, speaks good English and cooks delicious, hearty meals which we ate al fresco on the flagstone patio. She is a good cook and a relaxed host. We arrived (as expected) to find the hotel locked and a scrawled note in French informing people to phone her on her mobile. Luckily, we could read French and had a phone. Jeanne arrived shortly afterwards. She’d gone for an afternoon river swim.

Calacucchia village in the Niolu valley, under two hours’ drive from Bastia airport, is a good base for hikes.

‘Randonée en etoile’ (Star Hiking) is an easier way of exploring the hills and mountains than ‘Grand Randonée’. Grand Randonée involves following one long path, lugging your belongings in a rucksack and sleeping in simple but crowded dormitories in ‘refuges’ (or in a tent, which, of course, you carry). With ‘Star Hiking’ you make day-trips (with a guide if you like) from one base and come back to a home-cooked meal and a comfortable bed in a private room. There are at least a week’s worth of spectacular walks from Calacucchia.

We did two – one along part of the long-distance ‘Coast to coast north’ route followed a rocky path where chestnut trees were heavy with blossom. There was an abandoned chapel where the priest would bless shepherds and their flocks before they set off on a three day trek to winter pastures. A 15th century Genoese bridge arched over a boulder-strewn stream near the remains of an old mill, once used for making chestnut flour. It was picture-postcard perfect but there were no crowds.

We hiked on up past more chestnut trees. What had recently been identified as a Bronze Age menhir lay across the path. My friend told me of the menhirs in the south of the island near where she leads walks. “They’re standing and some even have faces – eyes and ears.”

We left the path to see the remains of a Genoese watch-tower and peek at the highest village in Corsica, Calasima at 1100m. Maquis smells and looks beautiful, with its yellow, white and purple flowers and scents of herbs and spices, but it doesn’t half tear your legs. Many of the plants have thorns and, when not following the path, before long, blood is drawn.

The next day’s hike was to beautiful Lac de Nino. This lake is on the GR20 route, Corsica’s most famous long-distance walk: a two-week hike across the mountainous spine of the island, undertaken by several thousand people annually.

It was a difficult trek up a steep, rocky mountainside. The reward was a view of a reed-edged lake, snow-capped mountains and a brilliant green mossy floodplain where wild horses grazed. The landscape here has its own vocabulary: pozzines is the Corsican word for ‘rivulets in spongy turf’.

Our guide that day was a man who is a goatherd. He has a flock of a hundred and fifty that he leads up to fresh pastures with his Border Collie who accompanied us on the walks. Antoine was a guide of little words – he spoke no English and his French accent was difficult to understand. He was, however, fluent in ‘goat’. Passing a herd of the animals on a hazy hillside, he called to them, in whooping cries. The animals stopped their grazing and looked his way.

The goats’ milk is made into cheese, which some enterprising goatherds sell directly to passing hikers. According to ‘The Rough Guide to Corsica’, the goats also have another use: aromatic resin from the maquis gathers in their beards. This is ladanum gum, which the goatherds pluck from their charges. It is sold to make myrrh.

After three days of hiking, it was time to relax. Hotel Mare e Monti is in the village of Feliceto, high enough in the mountains to escape the coast’s searing summer heat, but close enough to the coastal resorts of Calvi and L’Ile Rousse to make easy jaunts to the beach, restaurants and scenic boat-trips to the spectacular coastline of Escandola National Park.

The elegant mansion is a nineteenth century ‘maison d’Américain’ built with the wealth of plantations in Puerto Rico to where many Corsicans emigrated when a vine disease affected their vineyards. The property is still owned and run by the Renucci family who built it. My bedroom had views over the honey-coloured village and to the mountaintops. The breeze blew through open shutters and I woke to the sounds of birds. We sat at poolside tables drinking the family’s own wine and drizzling their organic olive oil over salads of local goats’ cheese. It was that timeless bliss of being in harmony with the land, enjoying its bounty and beauty.

Walking holidays are invigorating, but when there’s good local food, wine and hospitality to boot, they’re hard to beat. There needs to be another word this rugged island gives us.

Paul Miles was a guest of the Corsican Tourism Board www.visit-corsica.com

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