St-Malo → Vannes

01 Heritage

Remparts de Saint-Malo

Begun in the 12th century and largely rebuilt in the 18th by Siméon Garangeau, at Vauban's request, the ramparts enclose the corsair city for 1,754 metres. Follow their wall walk between the granite houses and the sea, as far as the old kennels of the watch mastiffs. The bombing of 1944 spared them, while the town was devastated.

02 Village

Dinan

Girdled by ramparts, Dinan commands from its hill the Rance valley, which it overlooks by 75 metres. You head down to the port by the Rue du Jerzual, steep and lined with half-timbered houses. At the water's edge, where Dinan long offered the last bridge before the estuary, the town reveals itself in tiers up the slope.

03 Castle

Fort la Latte

On a rocky spur near Cap Fréhel, this 14th-century castle watches over the Bay of Saint-Malo. Cross two drawbridges, one of which spans a fissure several metres wide, before reaching the courtyard and its keep. Besieged by Du Guesclin and restored from 1931, it has lent its walls to several film shoots.

04 Coast

Cap Fréhel

Rising between the bays of Saint-Brieuc and Saint-Malo, this headland of pink sandstone drops into the English Channel from a height of around seventy metres. Follow the coastal path between heather and gorse, with the Fauconnière stack and its seabirds below. On a clear day, Jersey appears on the horizon.

05 Village

Paimpol

At the head of its bay, near the Trieux estuary, Paimpol grew up around docks where fishing boats and yachts lie side by side. At low tide, you can walk round the Pointe de Guilben to see pillow lavas 640 million years old. The port keeps alive the memory of the Iceland fishermen Pierre Loti wrote about.

06 Village

Tréguier

A former bishopric and historic capital of the Trégor, Tréguier occupies the promontory where the Jaudy and the Guindy meet in a broad ria. Stroll through its lanes lined with half-timbered houses to the square before the Cathédrale Saint-Tugdual. Below, the estuary-head harbour, nine kilometres from the sea, mainly welcomes pleasure boats.

07 Monument

Ploumanac'h Lighthouse

Phare de Ploumanac'h

On the pink rocks, the Men Ruz lighthouse was rebuilt in red granite from the La Clarté quarries, after German troops blew up the first one in August 1944. You approach it along the coastal path, without being able to go inside. From there, the view runs out to the Château de Costaérès and the Sept-Îles archipelago.

08 Archaeology

Barnenez

Cairn de Barnenez

On a promontory overlooking the Bay of Morlaix, discover a long dry-stone cairn built around 4700 BC. Its 75 metres hold eleven passage graves, and the façade shifts from dark dolerite to pale granite. Damaged by a quarry in 1955, it ranks among the oldest monuments in Europe.

09 Monument

Morlaix viaduct

Viaduc de Morlaix

Sixty-two metres high, this stone viaduct with two tiers of arches spans the very heart of Morlaix, which the town council feared would be smothered. From the streets, watch for the trains on the Paris-Brest line passing above the rooftops. In January 1943, a single British bomb struck it, opening a breach that was quickly repaired.

10 Heritage

Saint-Thégonnec Parish close

Enclos paroissial de Saint-Thégonnec

In the heart of the town, a Renaissance triumphal arch in granite, completed in 1589, opens onto the enclosure of the church of Notre-Dame. Here, see an ossuary built from 1676 to 1682 and a calvary of 1610, the latest of the great enclosure calvaries. Ravaged by fire in 1998, the church has been restored identically.

11 Coast

Pointe de Pen-Hir

At the end of the peninsula, the pale Armorican sandstone cliffs of Pen-Hir drop sheer for some 70 metres. Below, the Tas de Pois line up their rocks out to sea. On a clear day, you can make out the Île de Sein, the Pointe du Raz, Ouessant and the Pointe Saint-Mathieu.

12 Coast

Pointe de Dinan

At the tip of the headland, a mass of sandstone forms a ruined castle, with a natural arch serving as its drawbridge. On a clear day, take the path to look out over the Iroise Sea, the Tas de Pois and, to the north, Brest. At low tide, this sandstone castle can also be admired from Kerloc'h beach.

13 Village

Locronan

Step onto a cobbled square where an old well faces the church of Saint-Ronan and the granite Renaissance houses topped with slate. These prosperous façades speak of the fortune the town once made from the sailcloth trade. From Plas ar Horn, above the town, a wide panorama opens over the Bay of Douarnenez and the Ménez-Hom.

14 Coast

Pointe du Raz

At the far western end of Cap Sizun, the point thrusts its granite prow 72 metres above the Raz de Sein, with its feared currents. Walk among the heather, which has returned after decades of trampling, out to the point facing the Île de Sein. The shops and hotels that covered the headland were demolished in 1996 and 1997.

15 Coast

Pointe du Van

Leave the crowds at the Pointe du Raz and walk to the Pointe du Van, which closes the Baie des Trépassés to the north. Its softer rock, gnawed by the swell, breaks into multiple headlands, so that the tip seems to slip away with every step. Near the chapel of Saint-They, large isolated blocks stand out against the Iroise Sea.

16 Monument

Penmarc'h Lighthouse

Phare d'Eckmühl

Watch this tower of Kersanton granite, more than sixty metres high, rise opposite the reefs of Penmarc'h. Its name honours Davout, Prince of Eckmühl, whose daughter wished, through this bequest, to redeem the tears of war with lives saved. Inaugurated in 1897, it hides a stairwell whose walls are lined with opaline.

17 Church

Quimper Cathedral

Cathédrale Saint-Corentin de Quimper

Begun in the 13th century, Quimper's great cathedral only received its spires under the Second Empire, after six centuries of construction. Between them, spot the equestrian statue of the legendary King Gradlon, perched high on the façade. Inside, the choir veers noticeably off the axis of the nave, a singular feature of the building.

18 Village

Concarneau

Concarneau was born on a fortified island in the Moros estuary, the Ville Close, linked to the mainland by a defended bridge. Around it grew France's seventh-largest fishing port, lined with shipyards. Watch for the spring tides on the Sables-Blancs beach, when seventeen oak trunks emerge from the sand.

19 Village

Pont-Aven

At the last bridge before the sea, the Aven leaves its jumble of rocks to widen into a ria, and this current once turned the town's mills. Follow the banks and the stone channels that fed them. Gauguin and Émile Bernard stayed here, and the little town still bears the nickname of the city of painters.

20 Island

Île de Saint-Cado

A causeway bridge, freely open to pedestrians, links this island in the Rivière d'Étel to the shore. Cross over to the 12th-century Romanesque chapel, the 1832 calvary and the holy well. All around, the waters of the ria rise and fall with the tide, along the jetty where the boats of the sardine port once moored.

21 Nature

Côte Sauvage de la presqu'île de Quiberon

On the west side of the peninsula, eight kilometres of cliffs run from the Pointe du Percho to the Château Turpault. Higher in the north, beneath perched dunes, they drop towards the south into close-cropped grassland cut by low stone walls. Walk along this great coast keeping well back from the edge, as the waves often sweep walkers away here.

22 Archaeology

Carnac stones

Alignements de Carnac

Nearly three thousand menhirs, raised around 4500 BC, stand in lines here over more than four kilometres. Follow these rows of granite whose height gradually decreases, like a frozen procession. After so many theories, from Roman camp to druid temple, Flaubert settled the matter with wit: they are big stones.

23 Archaeology

Table des Marchands

At Locmariaquer, this passage grave, just over ten metres long, carries a capstone 5.72 metres long. Its cairn, rebuilt in 1991, replaces a 1937-1938 restoration that caused controversy as far as Paris. Step into the chamber to see the back slab, engraved with crook-shaped motifs.

24 Castle

Ramparts of Vannes

Remparts de Vannes

Walk along these ramparts that protected Vannes from the 3rd to the 17th century, among the few urban fortifications still standing in Brittany. Duke John IV had them extended southwards at the end of the 14th century, doubling the walled town. The Bourreau, Poudrière and Joliette towers were added around the middle of the following century.