Itinerary · Bretagne
A week in Brittany: museums and heritage
A route from Rennes to the tip of Brittany, taking in the Carnac megaliths, the Pont-Aven school of painting, and the memorial museums of Iroise country — designed for a week, at the pace of one or two places a day, with a direct train back from Brest.
7 days · 12 stops · Connoisseur
Overview
Numbers follow the order of the route, day by day — the dashed line is indicative, not a precise driving route.
Day 1
Rennes, gateway to Brittany
We settle into the Breton capital, where grey stone townhouses sit alongside one of the richest painting collections in western France — a gentle start before the road west.
Day 2
Legends and megaliths, into the Morbihan
First stop in one of the most beautiful villages in France, where a medieval castle houses a museum devoted to fantastical art, before reaching the standing stones of Carnac at sunset — planted there millennia ago for reasons still debated.
Standout favouriteMuseum · Rochefort-en-Terre
Naia Museum, Musée-Galerie des Arts de l'Imaginaire
The Naia Museum is an art museum dedicated to the Arts of the Imaginative, located in the heart of Rochefort-en-Terre castle in Morbihan. Unique of its kind in…
Ancient mysteryHeritage · Carnac
Mégalithes de Carnac et des rives du Morbihan
Located in the Morbihan department of Brittany in northwestern France, this site encompasses the remarkable megalithic monuments of Carnac and the surrounding…
Day 3
The open sea, then the light of Pont-Aven
Morning in the wake of Éric Tabarly and his Pen Duick yachts at Lorient; afternoon in the golden light that drew Gauguin and his fellow painters here in the late 19th century.
Open seaMuseum · Lorient
Cité de la Voile Éric Tabarly
Éric Tabarly's City of Sailing is a museum dedicated to sailing and offshore racing, located in Lorient in Morbihan, Brittany. The visit route, lasting two to…
In Gauguin's footstepsMuseum · Pont-Aven
Musée de Pont-Aven
The Pont-Aven Museum, established in a rural setting in Finistère, is dedicated to the Pont-Aven School, a pictorial movement that brought together various…
Day 4
Bigouden country and Breton culture
South to Finistère, between the old sardine canneries of Bigouden country, where the smell of the catch once shaped daily life on the docks, and Quimper's former bishop's palace, among Breton collections and religious architecture.
Memory of the sardineMuseum · Loctudy
Musée de la conserverie Alexis Le Gall
The Alexis Le Gall Cannery Museum, located in Loctudy in Finistère, occupies the site of a former fish canning factory founded in 1901. It traces the history…
Breton memoryMuseum · Quimper
Musée départemental breton
The Breton departmental museum, located in Quimper in Finistère, is a museum. Housed in the episcopal palace, it brings together collections spanning nearly…
Day 5
Douarnenez & Landévennec abbey
The Douarnenez waterfront, among old rigged boats moored like an open-air museum, then the ruins of an abbey founded in the 9th century, one of the oldest in Brittany.
Open-air museumMuseum · Douarnenez
Port-musée
The Port-Museum of Douarnenez is an open-air museum dedicated to boats and maritime cultures. Located on the port of Douarnenez in Finistère, it offers a…
Archaeological siteMuseum · Landévennec
Musée départemental de l'ancienne Abbaye de Landévennec
A site museum installed on the ruins of the former Abbey of Landévennec, on the Crozon peninsula in Finistère. The museum combines an exceptional…
Day 6
The Crozon peninsula, wartime traces
Two wartime bunkers turned museums on the wild coast: first the Kerbonn cliffs at Camaret, fifty metres above the sea, then Pointe Saint-Mathieu and its immersive look at Brittany under occupation.
Breathtaking viewMuseum · Camaret-sur-Mer
Musée mémorial international de la Bataille de l'Atlantique
The International Memorial Museum of the Battle of the Atlantic is located in a blockhouse on the Kerbonn cliff in Camaret-sur-Mer, overlooking the sea fifty…
ImmersiveMuseum · Plougonvelin
Musée Mémoires 39-45
The Mémoires 39-45 Museum is a war museum housed in a former German command blockhouse located in Plougonvelin, in Finistère, near Pointe Saint-Mathieu. The…
Day 7
Iroise country, the final stop
The final stop of the trip, in an 18th-century townhouse in Saint-Renan, on the edge of Brest — with a direct train line back to Rennes and Paris, or onward into Finistère.
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