Following in Smugglers’ Footsteps
Created in 1791, the GR34 path is also called the Sentier des Douaniers (the Customs Officers’ Path) – so-called as a result of French officers would tramp its whole size in search of to foil the coastal exploits of smugglers – and it has an iconic standing in France. It’s generally billed as “the popular long-distance footpath of the French”, and I’m keen to search out out why.
Time shouldn’t be on my facet, nonetheless. So I resolve to run, not stroll, the Sentier des Culs Salés (bizarrely the “path of salty bottoms”), a 21km route from the city of Séné that follows within the footsteps of nineteenth century salt smugglers. It’s my first probability to dip a figurative toe into the GR34’s waters – and it doesn’t disappoint. As I run alongside expansive salt marshes, tidal bays, sandy seashores and sleepy fishing villages, I style the salty air on my lips, really feel the late afternoon solar on my neck, and let my worries float away on the ocean breeze.
The next day I commerce my operating trainers for 2 wheels. The plan? A 40km gravel biking mission across the western shores of the Gulf of Morbihan, beginning and ending within the commune of Baden. We trip inland greater than I anticipate, on tree-lined nation tracks and joyously quiet backroads linking sleepy villages. However in Brittany the coast isn’t far-off and – as if the route is aware of we’d like a “repair” of hazy coastal views – we’re handled to intermittent glimpses of Pointe d’Arradon, Île-aux-Moines, Port Blanc and Pointe de Locmiquel.
“A million folks stroll this route yearly”, says Didier, our chaperone for the following leg of this whistle-stop tour. We’re now on the northern shoreline close to Perros-Guirec, mountain climbing a famed (and evidently uber-popular) part of the GR34 between Le Ranolien and Ploumanac’h seashore, referred to as the Pink Granite Coast. Right here dramatic tors pierce out the shoreline: weirdly-shaped and chaotically-nonconfirmist, like precariously-balanced Jenga stacks of rock.
They’ve a particular pinky hue, attributable to the presence of the mineral feldspar inside the rock – a phenomenon distinctive to this a part of Brittany and just a few different locations globally. I’m struck by a wierd dichotomy. Maybe within the 1800s these labyrinthian outcrops served as best cowl for the unlawful operations of cotton, sugar, espresso and tobacco smugglers; now they’re beloved for his or her pure magnificence and distinctive kind. That’s some reinvention.
“We could get again to the biking?”, asks Emilien the next day, brushing boulangerie crumbs off his midriff. We’re biking a bit of the 38.5km Vélomaritime (EuroVelo 4) route from Paimpol to Saint-Quay Portrieux on the Goëlo coast, and we nonetheless have an honest trip left to finish after lunch. I look into the gap on the route forward. To 1 facet is the ocean, to the opposite is the land, and in-between is a skinny line of coastal loveliness – a slim band of Brittany the place the journey roars as loud because the crashing waves.
