Pink granite lighthouse in France. Brittany's Charm: Plumanac Fantasy Pink Granite

The coast of pink granite is an unconditional point of attraction for everyone traveling in Brittany. Plumanak, Peros Girek, Tregastel - these names attract travelers from all over the world. It is easiest to get here by car, but we are not considering this option. Public transport, upon closer inspection, is more or less loyal to backpackers, so I tell you how to get to the treasured pink cliffs, sculptures and beaches.

Riding on the Pink Granite Coast from Lannion

The most important thing in this adventure is. I talk about this in a separate post.

And already from Lannion to the desired natural beauties it is literally at hand. There are many different options from bus to taxi.

In Cote d’Armor, tourists and locals are transported by the TILT bus company, Lannion-Trégor Communauté. At https://www.lannion-tregor.com/fr/deplacements/le-reseau-tilt.html you can download the current bus schedule.

Buses of route E run to the Pink Granite Coast from Lannion. We look for him in the brochure:

Buses are timed to the arrival of the same train from Rennes, which I talk about in a post about how to get to Lannion (link above): three day buses (in low season), morning and evening buses are added in the high season at 08.55 and 19.05. The bus follows the route Lannion - Saint-Quay-Perros - Perros-Guirec - Tregastel.

Be careful, the schedule changes from season to season!

It makes no sense to go to Tregastel, you need to go either to Peros-Girek or Plumanaka, or go to the Tourony stop (there are campsites on the coast) - it all depends on your plans.

Ploumanac "h

I don’t even know how to accurately name the place I want to introduce you to. Probably, most accurately to call it the Coast of pink granite. This is a picturesque tourist area, equipped with paths for those who thirst for contact with nature and amazing views.

There is an indecent amount of granite in Brittany. Gray color. And in this place, granite, somehow pink, especially magical at sunset and sunrise. 30 km of the shore of absolutely pink stones turned out due to the increased concentration of feldspar in them. There are only three such places with pink granite blocks on the globe: in Brittany, Corsica and China. Well, to China far, to Corsica - not in the near future, but I'm already here in France

Pink granite shore

Granite in the surrounding quarries has been mined for over 10 thousand years! A cross was made from this granite on the tomb of Charles de Gaulle, the streets of Paris were paved., Not all, of course ... They say that even the Germans used to take it out, planned to use it for Reich construction sites, and after the war, Brittany granite ended up ... in the USSR, where pink stone was used to clad Stalin's skyscrapers.

Somewhere on the customs path.
   On the Russian-speaking Internet, for some reason, the Coast of pink granite is associated precisely with Perro-Girk, which I would not call correct, because The coast of Pink Granite captures several coastal towns, including the already mentioned Perros-Gierec, Ploumanac’h and further Tregastel. Directly from the beach of Perro-Guirec, the so-called "Customs path" (sentier des douaniers) begins, with a length of about 4 km, along which you can reach the town of Ploumanac (h), ..

This "path", the buildings on it, was once used by customs officers to fight smugglers. So, all further information will be collected from French sites, so I apologize for the liberties ...

The trail runs along the coast, with a length of about 5 km, is quite easy to walk (but sneakers are required), and very impressive. By the way, the Conservatory of the coastline (Conservatoire du Littoral), which has been serving, restoring and protecting it for 20 years, is engaged in this natural corner.

On the trail
   The transcription of Perro-Hyrc in Russian, by the way, is an extremely thankless task. What options have I never met! Around Plunamak, as it turned out, the most picturesque places of this natural miracle are concentrated!

Plumanak on the horizon. Low tide - the water is gone. Actually, I'm standing at the bottom of the sea.

These are such cute houses

The face is red, arrogant. One joke.

What is the coast famous for? Tender pink boulders that appeared about 6 million years ago, when granite layers formed from cooled magma at a depth of 6 meters. Erosion, the ice age with all its consequences, rising sea levels - the stones rose, cracked, forming absolutely bizarre shapes. Climbing and lying on them is an amazing pleasure.

Plumanak is famous for its beautiful city beach, thalassotherapy center, casino on the beach of Trestrau. The small village of Plumanak and its chapel are located in the depths of a well-protected bay with wonderful landscapes of the coastline

   Opposite the beach on the island is an extravagant pink granite castle, built in the early 19th century. Polish engineer. From the village - the kingdom of restaurants and souvenir stalls - the customs officer’s path runs along the coast. From each point of this route, recently completely tidied up for the convenience of tourists, a magnificent view of the city of Perros-Guirec and the winding coastline opens - a pile of bizarre cliffs of pink granite.

Lie down, sit down, just take a picture ...

Boulders appeared here about 6 million years ago, when granite layers formed from cooled magma at a depth of 6 m. After erosion and demolition of the layers of earth above them and sea level rise after the ice age, the pressure on the lower layers of granite was reduced, which led to cracking of the stone and the formation of bizarre shapes.

Well, a variety of poses and angles

The inhabitants of Brittany were Christianized by Welsh saints who crossed the English Channel, according to legend, on ... stone! Well, Brittany is a land of legends, so imagine how a stone trough floating on the water with the Celtic monks! Just three wise men in one basin ...

Thus, according to legend, they landed on the beach in Saint-Guirec in Plumanache.

On the beach of white sand rises a small building made of granite, built in the 12th century. The location of the chapel with the statue of St. Girek is very interesting, since at high tide only the upper part remains and it seems that he is floating, as he could swim the stone on which the saint arrived in Brittany.

And the girls on marriageable days came and stuck needles into the saint's nose. There was a legend that if the needle remained in place, then the girl would get married in the coming year.

And don't say you don't like it!

And another important tip, until I forgot. In Plunamak - you must spend the night! Be sure to get up before sunrise and walk along the trail in different directions all alone and photograph the still sleepy sun on the ruddy ancient boulders. In the afternoon - a completely different lighting and sensations. It's chilly on the street

The sun's rays have not yet reached here ...

The same lighthouse in the morning

I'm going the other way. Very often, people are limited only to a walk along the customs path between Plumanak and Perro-Girk. However, if you go to the casino in Plumanak and follow the path (it is indicated) to the local "city" cape, it looks no less magical.

It's right in Plumanak such beauty

And that too

Going down the mountain to the port. The boats are sleeping

Morning in Plumanak ... Well, everything, it's time to the village

Saint Chapel

city \u200b\u200bbeach ... especially seasoned already bathe. water heats up very quickly

And in Plunamak, opposite the beach on the island, there is an extravagant castle of pink granite, built in the early 19th century. Polish engineer

The castle is on the horizon ...

The trails along the route are superbly equipped. I can lie a little, but they spent about 2 million euros on their equipment and are still collecting for further development. And very touching tablets with inscriptions like: we have specially built paths for you, do not go beyond them, do not trample the grass, it will die from this ...

Somewhere on the customs path. See the fence from the tourists?

Everything is flowering. Spring smoothly turns into bright summer

There are also pines

And the beaches, and local residents delve into the gardens ...

To be honest, Plumanak is one of the wonderful places where he has a good rest. When the water leaves, people pour out on the beach, children are especially happy at low tide

Oratorium St. Guirec tide

And rests cheaply. In the evening, the town, traditionally, became extinct. I found dinner only in the port in the traditional pancake house. It turned out to be the cheapest for the trip - for only 20 euro cider, mussels, potatoes. By the way, I really liked the tradition in France to always put clean water on the table. Whatever you order, there will be water!

Brittany is generally wonderful. Would return with pleasure. And maybe I'll be back ... many more times

Côte de granit rosetranslated from French means "Coast of pink granite." This is a stretch of coastline in the Côtes d’Armor department in the north of Brittany. It extends over a length of over 30 km from Plestin-les-Grèves to Louannec, including Trégastel.

It is an amazingly beautiful place: a rugged coast with huge boulders of a fanciful shape honed over thousands of years by the waves of the ocean. Due to the rare reddish hue of granite, this place has become a popular tourist attraction not only, but also. This is a very rare type of granite, which is found only in two places: on ( Les calanques de piana  near a town in the west of the island) and in China.

Such an unusual color is due to the content of feldspars in granite.

Boulders are about 6 million years old. Then, at a depth of about 6 m, granite layers formed from cooled magma. Due to erosion, the upper soil layers were gradually removed. With the end of the ice age, sea level increased, and pressure on the lower stony layers decreased. As a result, granite began to crack, forming bizarre boulders.

One of the most famous such boulders is a huge block with grooves machined by erosion, reminiscent of a person’s face:

The most interesting boulders can be seen in the area   Plumanah (), thanks to them has become a popular attraction. The most famous of the boulders are Turtle, Napoleon's Hedgehog, and Tilted Clogs, named after obvious analogies.

It is in these parts of the world where one of the most photographed sights is located:

Location of Cote de Granit Rose:

The coast of pink granite is located in the north of Brittany, near the villages:

Ploumanach - Perros-Guirec - Trelevern - Penvenan - Plougrescant

In France, the thematic name of the coast is quite popular.

List of various “shores” in France:

•   - The Mediterranean coast to the border with Italy.
• Silver coast — Côte d’Argent -the Atlantic coast of France in the Gironde to the mouth of the Adur along the Landes, including the Arcachon Bay and Europe's largest dune Pyla, in the region.

It turned out that among my readers there are not only lovers of city walks. So in vain the last time I worried, it turns out to many interesting to read about the natural beauties of Brittany. Therefore, I will continue. The next natural attraction of Brittany on our cycle route was the Pink Granite Coast.

I think it’s clear from the picture below that it is unrealistic to see the entire Coast of pink granite even for a whole day. For half a day, we only managed to walk around the Plumanak lighthouse, drive along the coast to Renote Island and walk along this island, i.e. five percent covered all the attractions of the Beach. Keep in mind. In addition, at different times of the day, the stones have their own color, it would be nice to see them during the day, and at dawn, and in the sunset. In general, at least a day can be safely spent here.

The first point was the town of Saint-Guirec.

Saint-Guirec Beach. The Bretons are still walruses, it’s not hot at all on the street (yesterday people still wore winter jackets), and today the sun came out a little, as they had already immediately rushed to swim.

Then we walked to lighthouse plumanak  (Ploumanach).

The place is very popular with tourists. Watch how they stuck around the stones around the lighthouse.

The railway goes straight to the sea.

Not just a stone, but a real prehistoric menhir. There are a lot of these menhirs and dolmens on the Pink Granite Coast, but I didn’t specifically look for them, because Karnak was still waiting for me.

After the surroundings of Plumanak, we reachedrenot Islands (Île Renote). In fact, now it is a peninsula, because in the 19th century, an embankment was built from the shore before it.

Renot Island is famous for its various bizarre boulders. There is a stone in the shape of an ideal ball, there is a huge lump that looks huge, but which you can move with your hands, or such a “sandwich” is one of the symbols of the island.

Because of the rain, I hid the camera under my jacket, so the lens was fogged up, but I even liked this foggy photo.

So here you have another extremely interesting natural attraction, I recommend including it in the route if you find yourself in Brittany. True, we looked at her a little slurredly because of my mood. The fact is that tourist apathy suddenly attacked me. Such a thing happens to me, for example, on an Italian trip, I thus had a day in the beautiful and Pisa.

To the Coast of pink granite, every point on our Breton route led me to sincere delight. Every day there was a kind of aesthetic shock, one of which was worth it, so it looks like I just burned out a little emotionally. In addition, at that moment I had already spent a great week in the saddle, and apparently physical fatigue had also accumulated. I mean, in Plumanak, I realized that now i want nothing. Somewhere again to saw on the bike, and even uphill, to admire something, take a picture. Not! But there was nowhere to go, pink granite would not look at itself, besides, I knew with my mind that beauty was simply not around. Do you have such failures, or am I some kind of psycho?

Fortunately, I was not alone, but most likely with my apathy I would sit for half a day somewhere on a granite boulder sticking into sea views. But my companion, Olka, was opposite, extremely cheerful, jumping on the boulders like a mountain goat and was eager to inspect as many beauties as possible in this place. So, willy-nilly, I also had to pack up, crawl along these stones, while not breaking my legs, somehow keep myself together and stay awake.

Of course, when I returned to Lannion  I was no longer up to the beauties of the city, I could not even get out to the center for dinner, since we had a room with a kitchen. In fact, the town is not bad, I just looked at the pictures, I had to walk for an hour, at least for the half-timbered streets. So here came a busy, interesting, but difficult day for me. That's all, in the next series we’ll go to the edge of the Earth (I'm serious).

I want to contribute to this wonderful community and talk about the town of Perros Guirec on the English Channel.
Perros Girek is a resort town with about 8,000 local residents. In its vicinity is one of Brittany's most famous attractions - the Pink Granite Coast.

How to get there:
By planefrom Paris (Orly airport) to Lannion. It is advisable to rent a car directly at the airport in Lannion (Avis or Hertz), it’s not easy there without a car, it seems that there is no public transport in Perros Girek. The second option is to take a taxi to Perros.
On Auto: Motorway A 11 Paris - Rennes, then road N12 Rennes-Guingamp, then road D767 Guingamp-Lannion, then road D788 Lannion-Perros.
Can and by trainto Lannion. Then by bus to Perros (did not check). Again I recommend finding a rental car in Lannion.

Where to stay:  I recommend choosing a hotel in Perros Guirec near the main beach (Plage De Trestraou). Around the beach is concentrated all the most interesting, from a distance it will be difficult to go to the beach, because the town is quite hilly. For example, you can stay at the networked Mercure Hotel. Or you can choose a small (for several rooms) family-run hotel (usually two stars), here the service and atmosphere will be simpler, but more authentic and cheaper. Room prices are seasonally dependent.

Title:The old name of the city is Penroz. It comes from the Breton words "Penn" (cape, tip) and "Roz" (hill, descent to the sea). Later, “Gireg” (the Breton version of the word “Guirec”) was added to the name - the name of a monk who arrived with his comrades from Wales in order to convert the Bretons living on the coast into true faith.

Well, the most interesting thing is what to do:
The main attraction of this area is Pink Granite Coast.   Pink granite is naturally not always, but only in the rays of the rising or setting sun, and then, rather, red-pink. But not even the color, but the dimensions and shapes of granite blocks are impressive. The trail along this very coast begins on the left (if you look at the English Channel) from Trestraou Beach. The path is long - 2-3 hours walk with rest and photographing, all the most interesting begins about half way. I advise you to take at least water with you, or you can have something to eat.

The final destination is the nearby town of Ploumanac’h. In Plumanac, there are very beautiful places in the Plage de Saint-Guirec area, near the beach there are several wonderful restaurants, in one of which (the name, alas, I do not remember), mussels are elegantly cooked. On the menu, boiled mussels are offered in at least 20 different dressings. By the way, you can stop here, and not in Perros Girek, the main beauties of pink granite (such as a lighthouse) are closer, and there are enough hotels.

The sunset in these places is amazing, but in the dark I do not recommend returning to Perros on the same path.

Next attraction archipelago of the Sept-Iles Islands.
Excursions go there from Trestraou beach, on the left side of the beach there is a ticket office where you can find the schedule and buy tickets. I recommend taking a long (2.5 hours, 19 euros) tour with a landing on one of the islands and calling at Plumanak Bay.
Since 1912, the Sept-Iles group of islands has been a protected natural area; bird hunting was completely prohibited on the archipelago. In 1976, the territory of the archipelago was assigned to nature reserves. In total, more than 20,000 pairs of birds live on the islands. On the island of Rouzic, you can see the largest colony of cormorants - 17,000 pairs. A dozen seals also settled in the reserve, but given their small numbers it is very difficult to see them. Today, the “Seven Islands” is the largest bird sanctuary in France.

Landing:

Rouzic Island is chosen by a colony of cormorants (they are the white part of the island):

Practically manual:

There are only twelve seals here. Here is one of them:

In 1740, the military settled on one of the islands. They built a fort, where a garrison was constantly on duty, which was supposed to repel pirate attacks and catch smugglers. In 1834 a lighthouse was built.

An island with a lighthouse and a fort is the only island where landing is permitted:

Remains of the fort:

On the way back, upon entering the Plumanac bay, a wonderful view of the castle (Château de Costaérès) opens. At the end of the 19th century it was built by the Polish mathematician engineer and inventor Bruno Abakanowicz.

Well, the third attraction is the local cuisine- oysters (huitres), mussels (moules) and other seafood are here in any restaurant. It is interesting to try assorted seafood - includes crab, spiny lobsters, oysters, several types of sea snails, maybe I forgot something else. It is also worth trying pancakes made of buckwheat flour (galettes) with various fillings, washed down with cider, of course. About the mussels I mentioned above. More authentic seemed to me restaurants in the port area, in those that near the beach a little tourist orientation is felt.

And here, in fact, Plage De Trestraou himself:

An interesting church in the center of Perros Girek:

This completes my storytelling. I hope he inspires someone to visit the wonderful town of Perros-Guirec :)

P.S. In preparation, I came across http://www.svk-pooh.nm.ru/pg.html and borrowed a couple of paragraphs from http://www.svk-pooh.nm.ru/rosegranit.html. I recommend reading the rest.