Brittany

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No one area – and certainly no one city or town – in Brittany encapsulates the character of the province; this lies in its people and in its geographical unity. For generations Bretons risked their lives fishing and trading on the violent seas and struggled with the arid soil of the interior. This toughness and resilience is tinged with Celtic culture: mystical, musical, and sometimes morbid and defeatist, sometimes vital and inspired.

Though archeologically Brittany is one of the richest regions in the world – The alignments at Carnac rival Stonehenge – its first appearance in recorded history is as the quasi-mythical "Little Britain" of Arthurian legend. In the days when to travel by sea was safer and easier than by land, it was intimately connected with "Great Britain" across the water. Settlements such as St-Malo, St-Pol and Quimper were founded by Welsh and Irish missionary "saints" whose names are not to be found in any official breviary

As their language has been steadily eradicated, and the interior of the province severely depopulated, many Bretons continue to treat France as a separate country. However, there have been many successes in reviving the language, and the economic resurgence of the last three decades, helped partly by summer tourism, has largely been due to local initiatives, like Brittany Ferries re-establishing an old trading link, carrying produce and passengers across to Britain and Ireland. At the same time a Celtic artistic identity has consciously been revived, and local festivals – above all August's Inter-Celtic Festival at Lorient – celebrate traditional Breton music, poetry and dance, with fellow Celts treated as comrades.

For most visitors, however, it is the Breton coast that is the dominant feature. Apart from the Côte d'Azur, this is the most popular summer resort area in France, for both French and foreign tourists. Its attractions are obvious: warm white-sand beaches, towering cliffs, rock formations and offshore islands and islets, and everywhere the stone dolmen and menhir monuments of a prehistoric past. The most frequented areas are the Côte d'Émeraude around St-Malo; the Côte de Granit Rose in the north; the Crozon peninsula in far western Finistère (Land's End); the family resorts such as Bénodet just to the south; and the Morbihan coast below Vannes.