Côtes d’Armor Walking Holiday, Brittany

• 8 nights’ accommodation on a bed and breakfast basis
• Luggage transfers
• Personal transfers where indicated in the programme as a standard arrangement
• Walk Pack, including route notes and mapping
• GPX files

What’s not included

• Public transport, including bus and ferry journeys
• Packed lunches
• Evening meals, available independently in local restaurants or at your accommodation where offered
• Entrance fees to museums and Beauport Abbey
• Travel to Paimpol and onward travel from Lannion

Traffic-free Bréhat offers a quieter day on foot, with lanes and paths passing colourful gardens, unusual plants and small coves. Its mild climate gives the island a different character from the mainland coast, and the slower pace makes a natural contrast to the GR34 stages that follow.

Around Ploumanac’h and Trégastel, pink granite formations shaped by wind and waves line the shore. Coastal paths wind between the rocks and continue around the Île Renote peninsula, making this one of the most recognisable stretches of the Côtes d’Armor.

The Côtes d’Armor changes character almost day by day. Around Paimpol, harbour life and the grounds of Beauport Abbey sit close to the trail. Bréhat brings quieter lanes, gardens and small coves, while further west the shoreline becomes rougher around Plougrescant. Then come the rounded pink granite formations of Ploumanac’h and Trégastel.

Several walks follow sections of the GR34, Brittany’s Sentier des Douaniers, with time to explore the places between them rather than simply cover ground. The overall grade is Easy to Moderate, although coastal paths can still be uneven and exposed to the weather.

It is a good choice if you enjoy varied days on foot, a strong sense of place and a holiday where fishing ports, historic towns and the Breton coast are as much a part of the experience as the walking itself.

Your holiday begins in Paimpol, where a coastal path leads towards Beauport Abbey above the bay. A day on traffic-free Bréhat brings quieter walking along lanes and paths between gardens, coves and the shore.

Back on the mainland, sections of the GR34 follow the Goëlo Coast through Loguivy and towards Lézardrieux. A transfer takes you to the medieval town of Tréguier before you return to the coast at Plougrescant. Here, the Pointe du Château trail crosses a rougher landscape of headlands and wave-shaped granite.

The final part of the holiday explores the Pink Granite Coast around Perros-Guirec. Paths wind beneath the formations of Ploumanac’h, around the Île Renote peninsula and onwards towards Lannion. Rather than following one continuous long-distance trail, the itinerary brings together selected walks along some of northern Brittany’s most varied coastline.

The GR34 is also known as the Sentier des Douaniers, or customs officers’ path. Its name comes from the officers who once patrolled Brittany’s cliffs and headlands watching the coast for smugglers. Much of the walking still keeps you close to the water, passing fishing communities, old harbours and granite settlements shaped by their relationship with the sea.

That relationship changes as you travel west. Bréhat’s mild climate supports colourful gardens and unusual plants, while around Ploumanac’h and Trégastel the coastline is formed from pink granite sculpted by wind and waves over millions of years.

It gives the holiday a pleasing variety. Harbour, island, exposed headland and granite shore come in turn, while the GR34 provides a thread through Brittany’s maritime history.