The Bay of Morlaix and the Bull's Castle, Brittany

or:  "The pesky English and the Château du Taureau"

This photo looks westwards from the tiny village of Barnenez on the Kernéléhen peninsula across the Bay of Morlaix.  In order of proximity, you can see:
- left foreground, the tiny Black Island ("l'île Noire"), which houses a lighthouse,
- right middle distance, the Bull's Castle ("le Château du Taureau") which occupies almost all of its rocky island,
- behind the Black Island, another small island, "île de Louet" with a lighthouse, 
- just behind "île de Louet", on the left, the northern coastline of the town of Carantec,
- in the middle distance, and more to the right, the island of Callot (note that the final letter, t, is pronounced), accessible from Carantec by causeway at low tide,
- in the background, the Brittany coastline with Roscoff at its northern tip.  Here the church towers visible are those of the town of Saint-Pol-de Léon.

Morlaix is a delightful town about ten miles south of this scene.  The bay is very treacherous, littered with a multitude of rocks which emerge or lurk just below sea level at low tide.  Thus two lighthouses are present, to help locate the top of the one and only safe channel down to Morlaix.   The massive castle was built to keep marauding English away from the town.

After the end of the Hundred Years War, Morlaix quickly became rich as the major French port on the English Channel.  Its hinterland also prospered, as witnessed by the stunning decoration of its churches.  

But old habits died hard, and an English raid on Morlaix in 1522 prompted the construction of the Bull's Castle which dominates the entrance to the sole channel giving access to the town.  The threatening castle which you see is that with alterations made by Vauban in the following century.

This is an utterly delightful part of France.  The seaside town of Carantec welcomed the composer Stravinsky and later General de Gaulle among its summer guests.