Ploumanac'h and the Mean Ruz lighthouse

Ploumanac'h is a district of Perros-Guirec and the densest concentration of pink granite on the coast. Three-hundred-million-year-old rock has been rounded by weather into boulders the size of cars, vans and small houses, stacked along the shore and given names by generations of locals — Napoleon's Hat, the Tortoise, the Rabbit. On the point above them stands the Mean Ruz lighthouse, built in the same pink granite and rebuilt after the war, which is why it looks like part of the geology rather than something dropped on it.

The rock is the subject and the light decides whether it works. In the last two hours before sunset the low sun brings out the feldspar and the granite reads pink, orange and salmon against a blue sea. Under flat midday light the same boulders are grey and the whole reason for coming disappears. Sunrise gives a cooler version of the same effect with the sea behind.

The main path from the Plage Saint-Guirec is short and mostly level to the lighthouse, so it suits long dresses and older relatives, and the boulders give an endless supply of natural frames — stand a couple in a gap between two blocks and the rock does the composition for you.

The tide changes the shoreline completely: at low water there is sand and rock pool between the boulders, at high water the sea comes right up to them. Neither is better, but a session should be planned around the tide table rather than discovering it on arrival.