Belle-Île-en-Mer, Brittany
Painter Claude Monet and actress Sarah Bernhardt had a soft spot for this speck off the coast of Brittany.
Belle-Île-en-Mer, which means “beautiful island at sea”, is an apt name for a dot of land 14km off the windswept coast of Brittany. It’s smaller than Waiheke Island and its villages cling to the slopes around sheltered ports. When I visit, it’s in the rich bloom of late spring.
The ferry arrives at the biggest town, Le Palais. Fishing boats are tied in the keyhole port and the shoulder-to-shoulder buildings, in pastel shades with contrasting doors and shutters, are washed in honey-tinted afternoon light.
I love it as soon as I arrive. And so did Sarah Bernhardt and Claude Monet. The latter liked its wild winds and jagged rocks so much that he made 36 paintings of the same scene in different moods. The French actress spent her summers here for 23 years and was quoted in 1904 in London’s Daily Telegraph as saying she loved Belle-Île “for its solitude, its silence, its wildness … for the dreams, the ideals, and the beauty that I find there”.
In the information centre near the wharf, a woman phones around to find a hotel with a vacancy, while
Sam hires a motorbike. He tells me the island is too big to walk around in two days, too small for a car – a motorbike is the ideal transport.
The evenings are long and soft, so we leave the motorbike at the hotel and walk around town. The harbour is protected from the sea by two stone breakwaters, each with a lighthouse at the end. Above this, a granite fort, Citadelle Vauban, dominates the town; it grew over centuries, mostly to keep out the English, who invaded, occupied and were rebelled against many times.
The cosy heart of town is a block behind the harbour front, away from the sea breeze. People promenade along the river’s edge as we sit at a table doing what one does in Brittany: drink cider and eat galettes (savoury buckwheat pancakes).
Have motorbike, will travel. The perfect morning is awake before we are. We zoom north on the country lane-like main road to the
village of Sauzon, through farmland with stone walls to stop stock from wandering and fields gold-studded with buttercups and daisies.
Sauzon has a finger-like harbour with a village climbing the hill on one side of it. Fishing boats are moored midstream, lobster pots are stacked on the wharf and dinghies are tied to the harbour wall. Breakfast is coffee and crêpes in the square between the harbour and church.
Sarah Bernhardt is calling, so we ride off to Pointe des Poulains, the sharp northern tip of the island, and its church-like lighthouse. Bernhardt first came here when she was 50 and still famous, beautiful and wealthy. Her home, a fort-like structure complete with gun emplacements on the roof, is tucked into the head of a valley. She could see the lighthouse from her bedroom window, framed, as all lighthouse views should be, by handmade lace curtains.
Though the exterior is austere, it’s snug inside, with a round cave ceiling. In the dining room, there’s a generous table for hosting friends; the man who would become King Edward VII was reputedly one of her lovers and was entertained here.
Bernhardt came to this place to escape the fans and her tempestuously public Parisian life. Multitalented, stylish and eccentric, this woman was the ultimate femme fatale: she had a 25-year-old lover when she was 67, kept a cheetah as a pet and was fond of sleeping (though not here) in a satin-lined coffin.
At the southern end of Belle-Île, Locmaria has a stone Romanesque church, built in 1070. It’s dark inside with jewel-like stained glass windows that tell stories related to Belle-Île. A smaller window features this church, framed with bright glass renderings of buttercups and daisies. It seems to capture the essence of the day, season and place; so sweet is this beautiful island in the sea.
We sit at a table doing what one does in Brittany: drink cider and eat galettes.