Here's the part the guidebooks leave out: for most of the climb, wind in your teeth and calves on fire, you can see the beach. Right there. Close enough to feel like a personal insult.

We went in May and eventually learned that the north still had snow on it and our bodies started filing complaints. Somewhere around the midpoint, low on food and high on aches, it did not take much to talk us into a new plan. The second half could wait. The sea, clearly, could not.

So we traded the ridgeline for the coast, spent the days we had left on the sand and on Corsica's windy little roads, and felt precisely zero regret.

GR-20, à la prochaine. We'll see you again.