I never thought I could associate rainy skies and beautiful vistas, but Belle-ile-en-Mer, an island just 8 kilometers off the Brittany Coast of France is where you can. I call Brittany the ‘Ireland of France’ for its weather and coastline.
Belle-île is located northwest of the city of Saint-Nazaire and to the southeast of Lorient. It is 8 km off the coast.
We booked our ferry from the peninsula of Quiberon to the island city of Les Palais and included our car. With rain in the forecast and a four-month-old child, a car can be a handy shelter, nursery and diaper changing station. The drive from Saint-Nazaire was under two hours and we were in Quiberon and lined up before lunch.
We made the one hour and fifteen minute crossing and arrived in the extremely quaint harbor of Le Palais to a blast of the ferry’s horn, an old tradition that notified the city’s merchants and transportation workers that another ferry was arriving with people and goods to unload.
Day one – Belle-île’s west
We barely checked in at our first hotel, the Hotel Clos Fleuri in Le Palais before we left to visit the enormous Citadelle Vauban that dominated the harbor where we just arrived. This turned out to be one of the few bad hotels we’ve had in France, where the facilities were immaculate (if a little musty) but the owner-provided service was terrible. As a staunch defender of French service, I was disappointed to see a hotel where the stereotype of poor attitude was the norm.
The Citadelle quickly made us forget the unpleasant owner and we had a fantastic time touring the remarkably large fortress that was built first to withstand raids along the coast and was later used by a succession of invaders, including the British in the 1700’s and the Germans in World War II.
In fact, as we were to see over the next three days, the Germans made extensive plans to stay put on the island and turned every rock outcropping and beach into a mini-fortress and spared no gray cement in doing so.
Sauzon
From our tour of the Citadelle, we headed west to Sauzon, the next port over from Le Palais. It was dinnertime and we followed a recommendation to have crêpes in a crêperie along the waterfront in the village.
Les Embruns was a fantastic choice. Our crêpes and galettes (the main course version) were just crispy on the outside but perfect on the inside. We shared a desert of crêpe de blé noir (dark grain) with sugar and butter. No matter how that sounds, it is amazing when done well.
La pointe des Poulains
From Sauzon we followed the road west to the end of the island, dominated by a lighthouse on a rocky point. Getting there meant parking and walking a combination of cement, dirt and sand that included the crossing of a sand spit that was only above water at low tide. We were fortunate.
The stroller, however, wasn’t built for this kind of adventure, but decided that if having this much fun meant buying a new one every now and then, we’d take that deal.
The lighthouse, long since automated, provided amazing views of the sea and distant islands that reminded us of the North shore of Maui, where getting there means violating every car rental company’s rules. Like Maui, this was well worth the effort to find our way and spend time soaking up the scenery.
Up next, Day two – Belle-île’s south
maximum adventure 
June 22, 2013
beaches, France, Latest