Normandie & Bretagne, France

Today I discovered that an ebike is a great thing for special cases. For example, to visit menhirs, beaches *and* Quiberon even though you have to cycle 60km to get everywhere.

Quiberon (Breton: Kiberen) is a French port town on the peninsula of the same name. Fishing once played a major role in Quiberon's economy. The town's population of around 5 000 now live mainly from the up to 60,000 tourists who visit during the summer.

Quiberon and Saint-Pierre-Quiberon were once one island until around the 11th century, when deforestation released sand that was carried by wind and ocean currents to form a land bridge. The north-south facing peninsula is around 14 kilometres long.

The area has a long prehistory, as evidenced by the dolmen of Porz Guen (also called Port-Blanc) and a number of menhirs, some of which date back to around 4000 BC. There is a gap between the Stone Age and Celtic island cultures in terms of settlement and monuments.

The special thing about the Quiberon peninsula is its diversity, which is due to the fact that one side of the island faces the mainland (Quiberon Bay) and the other faces the Atlantic. The sea is calm on the land side, in contrast to the Wild Coast (Côte sauvage) on the Atlantic side with small sandy beaches between the rocky bays of Port Blanc and Port Bara, where swimming is strictly prohibited.

The coast has been severely damaged by tourism, so protective fences and similar measures are being used to preserve the vegetation.

At the moment there are not many tourists yet, so it's quite nice but I can imagine how this develops in summer 😱.Lue lisää