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Those hot dog roses might have tipped the scale.

More than 2,500 species of wildflowers grow in Corsica, and the landscape teemed with dog roses, orchids, broom and wild herbs – I’d never smelt curry plant on a beach before.

The young dog rose and stretched, then walked towards the road.

The gorge unfurled through tunnels of forest and dog rose, opening onto russet glades of wildflowers throbbing with bees.

They were coming to a thicket of juniper and dog roses, tangled at ground level with nettles and trails of bryony on which the berries were now beginning to ripen and turn red.