The Baie des Trépassés (Bay of the Dead), 30km west of Douarnenez, gets its grim name from the shipwrecked bodies that are washed up there, and is a possible site of the lost city of Ys. However, it's a very attractive spot of green meadows, too exposed to support trees, which end abruptly on the low cliffs to either side, a huge expanse of flat sand (in fact little else at low tide), and crashing waves that thrash surfers and windsurfers to within an inch of their lives. Beyond the waves, you can usually make out the white-painted houses along the harbour on the Île de Sein, while the various uninhabited rocks in between hold a veritable forest of lighthouses.In total, less than half a dozen scattered buildings intrude upon the emptiness, including two hotels, both with tremendous views. Right in the middle is the pink Hôtel de la Baie des Trépassés (tel 02.98.70.61.34, [email protected]; €40–55; closed mid-Nov to Jan), which has menus of wonderfully fresh seafood from €15. The larger Relais de la Pointe du Van, run by the same management, is slightly higher up, to the right (tel 02.98.70.62.79, [email protected]; €40–55; closed Oct–March). The Pointe du Raz – the Land's End of both Finistère and France – has recently been designated as a "Grande Site National", and with its former military installations now thankfully cleared away it makes a dramatic spectacle. You can walk out to the plummeting fissures of the pointe, filling and draining with a deafening surf-roar, and beyond, high above on precarious paths.
| 