Photo : Jmhullot / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
Cap Fréhel
Cap Fréhel is a headland on the Emerald Coast separating the bay of Saint-Brieuc from that of Saint-Malo. Its cliffs, about 70 metres high, are made of pink Ordovician sandstone crossed by veins of diorite, whose red tint comes from the iron oxide in the rock's cement.
Behind the cliffs stretches a coastal heath of 340 hectares. The site is also a hotspot for seabirds: several hundred pairs of guillemots nest there, about 85% of the French population of the species. The cape has been listed since 1967 and has carried the Grand Site de France label since September 2019.
Three lighthouses have succeeded one another here. The first granite tower dates from 1701 and was the work of Jean-Siméon Garangeau, a pupil of Vauban. A second lighthouse, built between 1845 and 1847 and electrified in 1886, was destroyed in August 1944. The current one, built between 1946 and 1950, is 32 metres tall and its light carries more than 100 kilometres in clear weather. Coastal paths link the cape to the neighbouring Fort La Latte.
