The famous “Cote de Granit Rose”, the pink granite coast, is certainly one of the most spectacular coastlines on earth. The eponymous granite appears – beside Brittany – only at three other spots on earth: Corsica and two regions in China and Canada. I haven’t seen the ones in Canada and China, but I’m sure that the magnificence of the granite rocks of Brittany, the mysterious atmosphere of the site, is hard to beat.
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| Destination | Perros-Guirec, Britany, France |
| How I got there | By car
Also accessible by flights via some smaller airports at Lannion, Brest, Vannes; or via Paris by flight and train |
| Where I stayed and Hotel recommendations | We stayed at a nice flat near the Trestraou beach in Perros-Guirec: https://www.fewo-direkt.de/ferienwohnung-ferienhaus/p1752406a
There is a lot of accommodation options in the area, apartments as well as houses. We liked very much the Hotel “Castel Beau Sites”, located right on the beautiful beach of Saint Guirec. The “Hotel le Manoir du Sphinx” at Perros-Guirec offers a fantastic view of the ocean below and is located close to the Plage de Trestignel. The hotel restaurant is excellent! |
| Restaurants | Generally: reserve as early as possible during high season – there’s usually no chance to get a table “on spot”.
La Maison de Marie, Perros-Guirec: a little bit more expensive, but fabulous food! Le Duplex, Tregastel, at the Harbour; try to reserve on the first floor – great harbour view! Excellent food. Des Rochers: next to the “Duplex”, same nice Harbour view, if you manage to get a “front row” table; nice food, more traditional than the “Duplex”. Le Ker Louise: Tregastel, near Plage Saint Guirec. Good food. La Table de mon Pere: Tregastel, at the Hotel “Castel Beau Sites” Restaurant of the hôtel “le Manoir du Sphinx”, Perros-Guirec: fantastic view and excellent food, but reservation is difficult, as most tables are reserved for the hotel guests. |
| Things to do | Walk the “Sentier des Douaniers”, the “Custom Officer’s path”. It’s part of the GR34, a long-distance footpath surrounding the entire Brittany peninsula.
Enjoy fantastic food – see the recommendations above and many more! Visit medieval and prehistoric sites like Megalithes and Monasteries, Lighthouses and ancient stone churches in almost every village. |
| Recommendations in a nutshell | Walk – and don’t bring your bike. The hills are steep and the roads feature no bike lanes. Prepare do gain a bit of weight instead, due to the fabulous food. |
| recipe | Galettes Bretonnes (buckwheat crepes) |
The northern part of Britany is a particularly spectacular and beautiful coastline, called Côte de Granit Rose or “pink granit coast” in English. It is named for the pink color of the rock formations that are found on the peninsula north of Lannion, the most spectacular examples located between Perros-Guirec and the port of Ploumanac’h. Like this “pancake stack” below:
Rochers de Ploumanac’h
These impressive weather-beaten rock structures – some of them more than 20 meters high – form strange structures, many of them resembling things like a mushroom, a hat or animals. Here are some of the most spectacular ones:
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And some rocks are even integrated in the front or back yards of normal houses:
Many stones have been given names – like the famous stone called “Napoleons Hat”, which is located in a private garden of a spectacular house right on the beach of Ploumanac’h. Unfortunately, you can’t get really close – so in the picture below the hat is a bit hidden among the trees:
Here’s a kind of overview where to find which rock; the picture is taken from the “maison du littoral” which is located in the middle of the rock area and provides useful information about the area, including a small exhibition.
And pretty close to this place – located on the small island “Île de Costaérès” vis-à-vis the Ploumanac’h beach – stands another famous house. Or better: small castle, which belongs to a famous German actor.
Walking the path around the Ploumanac’h coast leads you from one highlight to the next. Unfortunately, it’s a quite popular walk, so be prepared not to be alone. During our stay the Corona Pandemic was an issue, and thus all pedestrians were asked to wear face masks all the time on the footpath.
The beautiful bay above gets completely dry at low tide.
And this lighthouse is certainly one of the most popular foto motives on the coast:
Abbey de Beauport
In addition to the beauty of the nature, there are some sights worth seeing. One we visited was the Abbey of Beauport…
…a medieval complex with a picturesque collapsed church roof
and a beautiful garden:
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And if you’ve got time, you should walk down to the sea and enjoy the view of the shore and the vast number of seabirds:
Semaphore de Crec’h Maout
Nearby, in the village Pleubian, there are the remains of an old lighthouse – in fact, it’s only the basement left. However, the view of the area is great…
…and at the beach nearby you can nicely sit outside, get home-made galettes and contemplate while looking at the boats lying on the dry sea floor (at low tide).
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Gouffre de Plougrescant and Maison entre les Rochers
Another famous spot is the “Gouffre de Plougrescant”, a spectacular rock formation at the very northern end of the entire peninsula, close to the Pointe du Château or “Castel Meur”.
Here the rocks form a deep cleft (French term “gouffre”).
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Close by there’s another hot tourist spot. It’s the “house between the rocks”, also known as “petite Maison du Gouffre” oder “Maison entre les Rochers” – certainly also high on the list of the most often fotographed sites. Built in 1861 between two rocks, it seems to get cruched by the rocks. It is a private property and you can see it only from a distance of about 100 meters, and is is not allowed to take pictures. That’s why my picture features the entire area, including the “gouffre” in the back. Still – a spectacular sight.
Megalithes of Kerguntuil
Some interesting megaliths can be visited at Kerguntuil. Although indicated by Google maps, they are a bit tricky to discover once you are there. Google maps leads you to an vast meadow, and only at the end of the meadow, a bit uphill, there are the hidden megaliths. When you’re there, get inside – despite the comparably small size, the place exhibits s certain magic:
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Vallée des Traouïero
Also not to be missed in the area is an almost “mystical forest” at the “Vallée des Traouïero”. Again, to find the entrance to the valley is a bit tricky – the easiest way is probably to start at the northern end. However, we decided to enter the valley close to the village of Kergomar and had some problems to find one of the few access spots. But in the end, it was worth the effort – the valley is really “a different world”, almost jungle-like. There’s a footpath along the small stream, which you can follow back and forth. You will have to do a small bit of climbing down some stairs, where the path meanders around some huge rocks.
And there’s a cave
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and a nice small lake to be visited.
Perros-Guirec and Plage de Trestraou
We stayed at Perros-Guirec, as mentioned above, in a nice apartment with a great sea view.
The house a bit bit up the hill (our flat was the second one from the left on the picture below on the upper floor), meaning early sports to fetch a baguette for breakfast from the local bakery. However, the view – here from our breakfast table – was great.
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The beach our balcony was overlooking is the Trestraou beach which is the main beach of Perros-Guirec.
During high tide, it’s a very popular spot for surfers:
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La Maison de Marie
And here’s our favorite restaurant – mentioned above in the list of recommendations, but also here again and with picture. Because this one you should really try: La Maison de Marie, located in the Clarté area of Perros-Guirec. During our stay, they were open only four days a week, and – except Saturday – only for lunch. Which required a very early reservation!
The area is also quite interesting for bird-watchers. Brittany’s largest bird sanctuary is located close to Perros-Guirec, on the Sept-Îles (Seven Islands) archipelago. Regular boat trips run from Perros-Guirec and from nearby Port-Blanc to Sept-Îles. However, during Covid 19 times, it seemed advised not to enter the boats, as they really were crammed with people. As far as we could watch from our balcony, nobody really took care of keeping a “social distance”, and so we decided not to go on the boat trip and stay on the beach instead.
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Plage de Trestignel
Perros-Guirec offers a second beach, smaller but equally nice, the Plage de Trestignel.
It’s located at the eastern end of Perros-Guirec, and there’s a nice walkway around the Trestignel peninsula, starting and ending at the beach:
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And you might combine this trip with a nice dinner at the “Hotel le Manoir du Sphinx” which is located above the Trestignel beach – on the picture below on the fery right side.
Tregastel
West of Ploumanac’h the small town of Tregastel is next on the coastline. And is also blessed with some spectacular rock formations, in particular on the small peninsula “Île Renote” (which means “island”, but it’s really only a peninsula).
There’s a big parking lot next to the Île Renote, and a wonderful footpath around the peninsula, which will lead you through the most spectacular areas.
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Try to get there in the evening – the low sun puts a very special glow to the rocks:
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And the stones exhibit colors of a light orange to a deep red and brown:
I also particularly liked the cedar trees with their yellow-green tips, looking like spring even in late summer.
Tregastel offers many nice beaches. A bit further west, there’s the beautiful bay of Coz-Pors:
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Tregastel Aquarium
And very close to the beach there’s the Aquarium, a great place if the weather should be a bit gray. The building is integrated into the rock formations – quite unique!
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And the inhabitants are also worth a visit:
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And afterwards you can enjoy the beautiful bay together with a beautiful beer of the region:
If you move further west, the spectacular rock formations are thinning, but the area is beautiful as well and suited for long beach walks, like Île Grande, which is connected to the mainland by a bridge and easily accessible.
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You’ll find lots of great foto subjects:
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The area gets even more impressive with approaching rain clouds:
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And in the middle of the small island you’ll find the Creperie “Les Tragoz”, where you should try the crepes with Calvados:
Greetings from Brittany – with face mask!
Recipe: Galettes Bretonnes (buckwheat crepes) – for 4 persons
Ingredients:
Dough (can be prepared on the previous day):
- 300 ml water
- 130 g buckwheat flour (or 100 g buckwheat and 30 g wheat flour)
- Salt
- 50 g salted butter
- 1 egg, medium or small size (can be omitted, but makes the dough a bit softer and less prone to break)
Topping:
- one slice of ham per galette
- a slice of Emmentaler cheese, grinded
- 1 egg (medium or large)
Vegetarians can easily exchange the “classical” topping, e.g. with spinach, hummus, mushrooms…
Preparation:
- Mix the dough ingredients (dough should be really liquid).
- Put a small portion into a pre-heated, non-stick pan and immediately spread the dough with a spatula to a layer as thin as possible.
- Turn as soon as the bottom side turns slightly brown.
- Then place the toppings in the middle of the galette (first ham, then cheese then egg).
- Fold the outer parts of the galette in a way that you finally get a square form and you can still see the egg in the middle – Enjoy!
*According to a German Court decision, all texts containing links to commercial pages (e.g. links to Tripadvisor, Airline, hotel or restaurant websites) have to be identified as “commercial” (in German “Anzeige”). As my texts do contain links like that, I therefore identify each post and page containing a link as “Anzeige”. However (and referring to the “About Me” page) I would like to point out that I do NOT post any sponsored content in my texts. I pay for all my trips myself.
