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Penhors
Typical small rural town in western Finistère. The main town lays just about one kilometre inland, with an offshoot named Penhors Plage at the coast, just where the rocky bluff coast ends and the long sandy beach stretching all the way to the Pointe de la Torche starts. Right at the transition point from flat reef to sand lies a small harbour with a small settlement behind. Further east some restaurants, a medium sized parking lot and large sanitary building provide a well-rounded infrastructure for beachgoers. Needless to say, that it hosts a surf school too.
Overlooking the transition from rock to sand sits Notre Dame de Penhors, a 13th century chapel which was an important place of pilgrimage. The chapel looks ordinary – for Finistère standards – from the outside but is very beautiful inside. If you are interested in these kinds of sacral buildings make a short detour to the ruins of the Chapelle de Languidou. It is well worth the visit (or stopover if you are heading south on the country road).
The beach is mostly fine sand and very wide at low tide. It needs a bit more swell than the breaks closer to the Pointe de la Torche and usually offers a soft wave well suited for beginners and longboarding. Once the swells have a bit more energy it tends to close-outs despite some good sandbars and the flat reef to the north.
With side-shore wind directions this is a good place for windsurfing, kitesurfing and all the other wind related water sports of nowadays, as long as the swell doesn´t get too big.
Check these galleries for more impressions: the beach, the Penhors chapel, the Languidou chapel.
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