Came for three nights, stayed for 11! Adventures around Névez in Cornouaille Days 7-14 Part 1 – Beaches galore!

Luckily, Mr B’s French was just about enough to clarify that yes, there were places available, and no, we didn’t need to reserve ahead of time – woohoo! 

We fancied Camping Raguénez Plage as it met a number of our ‘beach resort’ criteria: close enough to the beach for Mr B to be able to haul the trolley with our gear down to the beach, which should be swimmable; plenty of walking, ideally from the site; opportunities for cycle rides; good enough shopping within cycling distance; plus interesting places to eat out. 

And this site delivered in spades (as you may have gathered from the title!) Just a 15 minute mainly level cycle ride from the small town of Névez, it also delivered on a bonus of being a short drive from the art haven of Pont Aven (more to follow!). Not unlike our times in the past in the southern French town of Sérignan, we swiftly became very enamoured of the beach, which whilst not only beautiful, was usually very quiet, with easy, if bracing to start off with, swimming! It took us a while to acclimatise to the difference between plunging into the Bay of Biscay on a hot day – and the Med!

So before we knew it, we had relaxed into full-on Babley beach mode, whiling away the days reading, swimming and walking along the good old GR34 which ran along the back of the beach. The other end of Raguénez Plage is called Tahiti beach, partly with a nod to the artist Gauguin (again) who, apart from painting locally (as mentioned in the last blog entry) emigrated to Tahiti at the age of 42 where he continued his artistic endeavours, inspired by a series of young muses, until his death there twelve years later in 1903, at the age of 54. 

This first photo shows the gentle walk down to the beach from the site…

...where locals could be found fishing…

...the GR34 and the coastline was just waiting to be explored east and west…

...as well as good old fashioned chilling and reading on the beach…

We were also visited again by the French airforce, obviously putting on shows just for us, this time with camera ready…

With the temperature reaching the mid to high 20s, our stay started to feel like we were on the Med with lovely warm evenings (except of course the actual Med was a much hotter lower 30s!) We have both observed that as we have become older, that craving for the baking heat of the south has diminished (although we do miss the smells of the south and the sound of the cicadas!). 

We had a giggle at our initial uncertainty about how long we might stay before we had seen the beach, as represented by the amount of camping gear that gets put out initially…

...compared with the full on Camp Babley by the time we reached midsummer eve…

We have also come to enjoy this slower-paced trip, giving us an opportunity to get to know an area in more detail and discover things as much by chance, as from travel guides and brochures. And it’s lovely to arrive thinking we might stay just for a few nights, and then get to like somewhere enough to stay on longer...

S&J 25.06.25