Discovering Brittany Bretagne
Brittany, a place I’ve heard of plenty of times, but not in the best of ways, and after being in France for well over a year now and corrected on multiple occasions, I’ve learned to say “Bretagne”.
It’s been a rarity to hear a nice thing about the place, but I’ve come to realise it’s more of a case that you’ll find it hard to find someone in Sydney say something decent about Melbourne, and vice-versa.
“It’s always wet, cold and windy”, “the coastline is rocky and the beaches don’t have sand”, “anyone to the north of Paris is strange” – well, I’m sorry to disagree, but Bretagne was incredible! The coast was stunning, the people were overly friendly, accomodating and honest, the sand (yes, real actual sand) felt great beneath our feet and the entire region now sits on my list of the most beautiful places that I’ve been fortunate enough to visit in this stunning country.
Bretagne is about a 500-600 km drive drive from Bordeaux, where we live. With that in mind and so much to do in our neck of the woods, it’s probably why we haven’t yet ventured over to the mystical land of the north.
Eva’s Parisian brother, Ruben and two of his friends from the big smoke were having a joint birthday party at a venue in Bazouges-la-Pérouse, which just happens to be in Bretagne, only 20kms or so to the south of one of the main places that we wanted to visit in the region: Mont Saint-Michel. This was the perfect reason for us to finally make the journey to the area.
With the fluffy raincoats and fury little dog packed in the car, we started the journey. Eva’s parents live about halfway between Bordeaux and Bretagne, we called in there for a few days then continued north in convey until we arrived at the party.
After a few drinks, several failed attempts at speaking French and a lot of fun, we called it a night and headed to our nearby accommodation so that we could get a good rest and and an early start to our first day of sight seeing in Brittany ..Bretagne.
Mont Saint-Michel is a castle that becomes an island on high-tide. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before and probably the same case for most people on the planet.
From quite a distance away, you get views of the castle towering above the plains and ocean that surrounds it, becoming more and more impressive, the closer you get. It looks like a medieval mega-structure that’s straight out of a well-made film – incroyable!
We took our time to explore the narrow laneways and staircases with each turn providing another interesting view of the old buildings or out over the ocean on one side and the French countryside on the other.
As the crowds rolled in, we made our way out and had some lunch by the seaside in a little village known as Cherrueix, followed by much-loved visit to a crêperie pour le dîner.
The next morning, we said goodbye to the in-laws, dropped our baby off at the dog-sitters, put our hiking boots on and ventured east.
Mont Sant-Michel is on the eastern end of the northern coastline of Bretagne. We headed to Fort la Latte, about 85 kms along the coastline to the west.
Fort la Latte (Château de La Roche Goyon – “Castle of the Rock Goyon”) is castle that sits out on a rocky cape. We were able to get up-close views of the old fortress that was built in the 14th century, then explored some hiking trails in both directions, visiting Port de Saint-Géran to the south..
..then walking back past the castle and over to Cap Fréhel that sits to the north-west.
Read more about the hiking trail from Fort La Latte to Port de Saint-Géran.
& you can head over here for more photos of the walking trail from Fort La Latte to Cap Fréhel.
Our day ended at an old stone cottage bed and breakfast near Lamballe, about 30kms to the south-west of Fort la Latte. A comfortable and cosy retreat to take rest before a big day of coastal walks that lay ahead.
Bretagne has presented some pretty impressive and memorable sights over the last couple of days, but now that we’ve made it further to the west, we really began to fall in love with the place.
At this stage, Eva is about 5 months pregnant. The focus of our week of visiting Brittany is all about relaxing, sight-seeing and exploring – for us, hiking can encapsulate all of this, as long as we take it easy, because although Eva is fit as a fiddle, she’s got a bit of extra baggage to cart around.
Two hiking trails were on the day’s agenda. One of them depended on the tide being out, which is the late afternoon, so we started with a walk around the Le Gouffre loop, which is still on the northern coastline of Bretagne, about two-thirds to the western end from the east.
Walking the “Le Gouffre Boucle” was a highlight of our trip. It was an easy trail to conquer with little elevation gained that weaved around the coastline where we had beautiful views of old stone buildings and stunning rock formations that looked similar to what we’ve in Australia along the Great Ocean Road, Wilson’s Prom and the Bay of Fires on Tasmania’s west coast.
We even got to see a Oyster farm in one of the bays when the tide started to lower.
Read more about the Le Gouffre Boucle (Le Gouffre Loop Walk).
The second hike of the day took a bit more of a toll on us both. With no set path to follow, we trekked out to the point of Le Sillon de Talbert, which took us along a very narrow body of sand and stones where every step was an effort.
Here’s some more information about the walk out to Sillon de Talbert.
We eventually made it to the point and it was quite cool to be on this small part of land surrounded by the ocean, then we dragged our feet back to the car and retreated to close-by bed and breakfast in the Penvénan area and enjoyed a well-earned meal at a great hotel right on the rocky coastline in a neighbouring town.
After a couple of days of exploring by foot, we slowed down the pace and spent the day in really interesting little place called Tourony. The coastal village had a bunch of nice boutiques and restaurants, surrounded by small bays and rocky inlets that were a lot of fun to explore.
We still managed to sneak in a couple of short and easy walks, one of the was up, down and around the rocks, right beside the village at Ploumanac’h, then in the opposite direction and across the body of water, we circled around ÃŽle Renote.
See more photos of Ploumanac’h Boucle.
See more photos of ÃŽle Renote Boucle.
Staying on trend of the day prior, but with a bit less time spent on our feet, we visited a couple of old medieval looking towns in the area for some window shopping and eating, then headed to another nice and cosy bed and breakfast in Treguier for the night.
For our final destination on our visit to Bretagne, we jumped on a fairy and spent a couple of nights on Ile de Batz!
The moment that we stepped off the fairy and onto the Island of Batz (“Ile de Batz” – “Low Island” – the name comes from people getting the tiny island confused with the mainland, as it’s low and hard to tell if it’s a peninsula or surrounded by water when viewing it from certain angles) we were almost swept off our feet by the strong winds and rain that came in sideways.
After a wet and wild walk, we made it to the very south-eastern point of the island and fortunately for us, we were allowed an early check-in to our warm timber cabin. The storm gave us a great excuse to hunker-in and spend most of the day cosy inside, other than a casual walk into the small village when the rain stopped for a little while.
Another storm was forecast for the afternoon of the following day, so we got up relatively early the next morning and set-off by foot. Slowly, we followed a trail around the island, cutting a few corners before spending another quiet evening inside.
Read more about walking around ÃŽle de Batz.
ÃŽle de Batz was a great way to spend our last couple of nights in Bretagne. The next day, we picked up our little dog and made the long drive back to Bordeaux.
We had such a good time visiting Brittany/Bretagne and we imagine that it’s going to be a regular holiday destination that we’re going to revisit many times, the next time it’ll be with a kid or two!
If you’ve been to Bretagne and have some places to recommend that we visit the next time that we’re in the area, we’d love to hear from you in the comments section below!
Cheers, Guy.