Pink Granite Coast
Pink rock
Northwest of Brittany, around Perros–Guirec, the land rests on pink granite.
In Ploumanac’h, enormous blocks emerge or are piled upon another, ready to lose their balance. Some look like animals, like this bear. The Saint Guirec beach is full of rocks at low tide, with an inhabited island and a granite altar dedicated to St Guirec.
Ploumanac’h is a very sheltered harbour. Along the coast, paths allow to walk among the boulders to a pink granite lighthouse.
Perros–Guirec
Perros–Guirec harbour is a superb shelter, I often photograph it at sunrise, with orange, pink or flaring colours. Its waters are clear enough to see the fish which shelter there.
Here it is too under a thunder cloud, when a white sun ray cuts through the clouds, or bathed in mauve light at sunrise.
Another sunrise, with a glimpse of the sun between the clouds, the sun casting rays upwards, then downwards between the clouds, and the landscape turning yellow and blue once the sun has risen.
In winter, before sunrise, the harbour is very quiet and the Christmas lights are lit, or it’s coloured pink by the rising sun.
Along the coast, you glimpse clear water between foliage and ships are moored.
Stairs go down in the water.
North of the harbour, Trestraou is a cove, with lots of restaurants, a cinema, a casino, and above all an outlook towards the Sept-Îles.
The shore has all kinds of rocky points, extending in front of an island, one of them with a huge granite block emerging from its tip.
On the horizon, you can see the coast extending to the east in the haze.
Sept-Îles
These islands are the biggest bird sanctuary in France. They can be seen from the coast, as a very nice panorama, sometimes between grey clouds and a grey sea, I shot a pine tree as a foreground to the islands.
Between Trestraou and Ploumanac’h, they appear off to sea behind the heaps of pink rocks.
A trip on an old gaffer allows to discover the islands leaving from Trégastel. The gannet colony on Riouzig island is astonishing.
Atlantic puffins also nest on Riouzig island. European shags and grey seals can be seen on the rocks between the islands. You can only land on Jentilez island.
While sailing aboard Marie-Fernand, we go along the Sept-Îles basked in sunlight.
Trébeurden
Further west, Trébeurden features a rocky cape, the Castel, with a low tide link to the Milliau island, where prehistoric remains like a huge stone altar can be found. Up on the coast, I caught clouds coloured pink by the sunset, and, coming back, the Castel cape promenade lit-up by streetlights.
Between the rocks, you can find sand beaches, and among them, holes full of clear water. Close by, fishermen have their flags and buoys ready on their ships.
Rocks look like a moai on the shore facing Milliau island. Further north in Île-Grande, visitors have piled round stones on the shore.