For centuries a French naval base, Brest has a colossal natural harbor that couldn’t be better for seafaring had it been designed by man.
Unfortunately, almost nothing in the city remains from before the Second World War, save for a few military fortifications like the city’s Château and Arsenal. Instead, what enthralls you about Brest is the spirit of adventure, conquest, and discovery in one of the leading cities in the world for Ocean research. Brest has always pointed its telescope westwards at the Atlantic, as you’ll realize on the quays of the port, by exploring Océanopolis, a world-class aquarium, or in the galleries of the Naval Museum in the bowels of the castle. Discover the best things to do in Brest.
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1. Océanopolis
We’ve seen that Brest is a city with a strong relationship with the Atlantic: 60% of European research on the ocean is conducted from this harbor.
So Océanopolis is the attraction Brest deserves: A wondrous ocean-oriented science and cultural center with 50 different aquarium tanks, the largest of which is the shark tank, holding a million liters.
Since the modern upgrade in 2000, the exhibition has been placed in three booths: Polar, Temperate, and Tropical, with 10,000 kinds of plants and more than a thousand animal species, from harbor seals (there’s a clinic for them here) to bull sharks, stingrays, and loggerhead turtles.
2. Port of Brest
Brest is a military port so there’s a limit to how much you can see, but at the commercial harbor, you’ll become aware of just how favourable this location is for maritime activity.
Wander along Quai Malbert's command to get a glimpse of the shipyards and get a better look at the vast natural harbor of Rade de Brest and the color buoy system to improve navigation.
The powerful French Navy rescue tugboat, Abeille-Flandre is moored at Quai Commandant Malbert and in just 20 minutes is able to leave port to guide a ship into the bay.
3. Conservatoire Botanique du Vallon du Stang-Alar
The role of this conservatory is to cultivate rare and endangered species for reintroduction, and their gardens are heaven for botanists. The ideal time to be here is in July and August when the two awesome greenhouses are open to the public.
They recreate rainforest, tropical mountain, dry tropical and subtropical oceanic climates, and feature plants that you may not be able to find anywhere else. For example, there’s the critically-endangered Madagascan aloe Suzanne, and the nesocodon, a flowering plant found only on the island of Mauritius.
The remaining 22 hectares are a beautifully landscaped little valley, with a stream, waterfall, ponds and lots of places to sit and reflect for a few minutes.
4. Pont de l’Iroise
Completed in 1994, this striking cable-stayed bridge spans the Élorn River between Pointe Sainte Barbe and Le Cap.
Among bridges of this type, it has the fourth-largest main span in France, and when it was built it broke a world record for the 400-meter distance between its two 113-meter-high pylons.
The structure definitely deserves a photo or two, especially with the sun going down, and the place to go for this is the adjacent Plougastel Bridge, which was built during the late-20s and is now restricted to just pedestrian and farm traffic.
5. Musée National de la Marine
Brest’s Naval Museum is in the Château de Brest, the oldest building in the city. There has been a fort here since the Roman camp of Osismis in the 3rd century, and it later became a seat for the Dukes of Brittany repelling sieges by the British in the 14th and 15th centuries.
The Naval Museum really takes advantage of its atmospheric location with sets of wooden figureheads from warships, historic model ships and sculptures and paintings that convey the development of the port in the 17th and 18th centuries.
You can see the command panels of a Second World War destroyer and check out a preserved Seehund midget submarine.
6. Tour Tanguy
On a hillock on the right bank of the Penfeld across the water from the Château de Brest is a medieval watchtower, most likely built in the mid-14th century during the Breton War of Succession.
Go in for the Museum of Old Brest, with a great selection of curiosities like the coats of arms of the city’s various medieval corporations and centuries-old maps of Brest. With each floor, you take a step through time, but the aim, through dioramas and models, is to recapture the look and feel of the city before the destruction of the Second World War.
7. Port de Recouvrance
Next to this tower and spanning the Penfeld River is what used to be the highest vertical lift bridge in the world until it was superseded by the Pont Gustave Flaubert on the Seine in 2008. But this bridge in Brest held the record for more than 50 years from 1954, with its four imperious reinforced concrete pylons at 70 meters and length of 88 meters.
The reason for these dimensions is the amount of naval traffic on the Penfeld; there needed to be a clearance of at least 45 meters. Pont de Recouvrance replaced a revolving bridge that was previously destroyed by the Allied bombing in 1944.
8. Musée des Beaux-Arts
Brest’s main art museum was handed the difficult task of replacing its entire collection after it was lost in the war.
So since 1945, it has assembled about 250 sculptures and paintings from the 17th to the 19th centuries, favoring older pieces instead of modern art to give people an idea of how the collection used to be.
Of these, make sure you see the work by the post-impressionist Pierre Bonnard, while there’s a large array of earlier Italian renaissance and baroque pieces by Carlo Saraceni, Palma il Giovane and Carlo Dolci.
9. Cours Dajot
For an unrivaled view of the harbor and the Château de Brest take this 500-meter esplanade high behind the commercial port. Cours Dajot is named after Louis-Lazare Dajot, the military engineer who designed it.
The avenues, which push on for 500 scenic meters are lined with elm trees, knee-high box hedges, and lawns. The park took shape in 1769 and was built with labor from the port’s penal colony.
If you happen to be in Brest in July 2020, Cours Dajot orders a privileged view of the Fêtes Maritimes de Brest, when hundreds of boats sail into the Rade de Brest.
We say 2020 because this festival takes place only every four years! See the Tour Rose here, built by the Americans to thank Brest for the welcome given when they arrived for the First World War in 1917.
10. Boat Trips
It wouldn’t be right to come to Brest and not board a vessel for a voyage, even if it’s just a short one around the Rade de Brest. The natural harbor is 180 square kilometers and the boundary with the Atlantic is the Goulet de Brest, a 1.8-kilometer channel.
You could also catch ferries to the Ponant Islands, namely Molène and Ushant, which still sustain communities.
Ushant is the larger, with more than 900 inhabitants, and its isolation has allowed the rare Oessant breed of sheep to flourish, and it is also one of the last places where the European dark bee thrives, as it has been replaced by the Italian honey bee on the French mainland.
More ideals for you: Top 10 things to do in Toulouse, France
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