Mermaid’s Retreat on France’s Wild Coast

By Sarah Wildman

On a Sunday morning last June, the wind was howling across a craggy stretch of France’s Cote Sauvage, or Wild Coast, on the tiny peninsula off Brittany called Quiberon. Standing in the wind, arms outstretched, my traveling companions and I had the sense we might blow out to sea, or at least back toward the pretty houses that line the seaside town of Quiberon.

Below us waves crashed into the sharp rocks, and signs along the rolling green parkland above the sharp gray boulders warned that swimming was prohibited. We were headed not into the water, but into the wind, toward a little shack that clung to the cliffs. Inside, a crowd of men and women dug into a midday meal of seafood – snails, oysters, clams, sardines – pulled from the nearby ocean and dressed simply in olive oil and parsley, salt and pepper.

The owners of the restaurant Les Mouettes displayed a little book “Quiberon – la Presqu’ile” (The Quiberon Peninsula) on a shelf. I flipped through it as I ate a perfect tarte au citron. The French Atlantic coast is interspersed with stretches of wild, protected land, dotted with fishing towns that were once as isolated and cut off as little islands. In the late 19th century, the railroad reached the truly wild Quiberon Peninsula, which has mile after mile of protected coast. The tiny town of Quiberon, known for sardine canning (and still popularly known as the place to buy various exotic fish spreads sold in tins), eventually became a tourist draw. The bulk of Quiberon’s income began to shift from fish canning to catering to the hordes of chic coast-seekers from the French interior.

These days, stores in Quiberon are eager to allow tourists to dress the part of seafaring types, stocking pea-coats, nautical sweaters and caps – as well as more luxurious byproducts like bath salts and algae moisturizers. Old sardine companies hawk their wares at factories like La Belle-Iloise in fancy tins, packaged as gifts. Bicycle companies rent their wheels to Cote Sauvage adventure seekers, and ferries shuttle beautiful people out to Belle-Ile-en- Mer, an unspoiled island in the Atlantic filled with 19th-century homes. At the very edge of the Quiberon Peninsula, facing the rocky coast, the rich and world weary can nurse themselves back to health at a joint thalassotherapy and diet center.

In the 1960s, hoteliers saw potential in the windswept bluffs at the tip of the Quiberon Peninsula and built the Sofitel Thalassa, and later added the Sofitel Dietetique. The center reflects the essence of French haute bourgeoisie and attracts the quietly and not- so-quietly wealthy. In the past, clients have included the former French president Jacques Chirac and his wife, Bernadette.

“I come every summer now,” said a woman who gave her name only as Leila, as she adjusted a purple headscarf. She was among a group of a dozen or so guests who had just arrived from Saudi Arabia late the night I checked in. Leila hoisted a large silver Gucci bag as two of her four children looked on with some measure of bemusement. “It’s too hot in Paris,” she explained.

The Sofitel buildings themselves are nothing special – white concrete-block structures in the style of Florida condominiums – but half the rooms, and all of the common spaces, have an unobstructed view of the sea. The clouds drift by floor-to-ceiling glass windows, and guests stroll or run on dirt trails, dressed in windbreakers, and seem not to mind the rain that blows through every hour or two. Some leave the trail and climb the rocks that jut into the sea. But the exercise is not obligatory: you can also watch the action from the seawater lap pool or perched in one of the outdoor seawater whirlpools.

Women and men shuffle through the hushed halls of the Sofitel, shod in white plastic slippers that mold to their feet, white robes and, often, the blue-and-white bath caps necessary for swimming in the lap pool. Each guest clutches plastic wrapped sheets listing the treatments they are to receive, everything from facials to massages, personal training sessions and the saltwater based treatments known as thalassotherapy.

In podlike rooms staffed by women in nurse whites, bathtubs are bathed in soft-blue filtered light. Based on the idea of the healing properties of seawater and algae, thalassotherapy is believed to have beneficial effects on the skin and pores, the circulation and one’s overall sense of calm and well being.

I booked a bain hydromassage. A massive bath built for one waited for me in my pod, lined with jets. The attendant filled my tub and added a creamy dark green algae that frothed in the bathwater. Jets forced out water aimed at pressure points that alternated every 40 seconds. Every time I nearly drifted off to sleep, the attendant would pop her head in “Ce n’est pas trop chaud?” (“It’s not too hot?”) – as the water around me bubbled and fizzed.

Connected by quiet hallways from the Sofitel Thalassa is the Sofitel Dietetique, where the wealthy and slightly corpulent come to do something about the latter. At 1,200 calories a day you are guaranteed to lose weight. But the chef, Patrick Jarno, ensures perfect meals. A Greek-style salad meant crispy steamed vegetables in a light tomato-based sauce. A sole was a succulent, roasted entire fish, accompanied by a vague relative of hollandaise. And dessert was a dollop of actual ice cream. The only thing missing was wine – there is none. There is, however, a “water menu” with fizzy and flat options from around the world. The nonalcoholic bar at the Sofitel Dietetique also offers a water menu, as well as fruit juice cocktails and teas.

Back in town the next day I undid any effects of the dietetique regime by eating at Maison Riguidel, a more-than-century-old patisserie that sells Breton specialties like a multilayered butter- rich crepe. Then I wandered around shops hawking ceramics, reproductions of old-time advertisements, and maritime novelties. For the latter, the largest venue is Via Maris, where my friends and I mulled over algae bath salts and T-shirts with French nautical sayings. On the beach at Quiberon a pounding disco beat provided a background soundtrack for lunch. Little bursts of applause rose up when paragliders floated down one by one. We watched from the terrace of the restaurant, Villa Margot, where we dined sumptuously.

And then we drove back along the windy Cote Sauvage.

Pulling in from the rocky cliffs, but not far from the coast, there are a myriad of towns to visit. We drove through St. Pierre Quiberon, St.-Julien, Portivy and over the narrowest of causeways to Penthievre. Some had their own tiny bays – swimmable watering holes – sometimes a perfect little town center. All were quiet and far less touristy than the thalassa-mecca in Quiberon. The small beaches felt private, personal, with a handful of anchored boats.

Yet most interesting to my friends and me were the far older attractions. In between the fishing cottages, lawns were dotted with granite, schist and quartz Neolithic megaliths called menhirs. Said to have been used by Druids when the Celts populated the area, and then later by the Christians, they now stand in formations, in groups, or alone – mysterious remnants of a prehistoric past that still seems to haunt the wild coast of France.

Originally published by The New York Times Media Group.

(c) 2008 International Herald Tribune. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.