toulinguet on crozon

NO BLAME SHALL BE PLACED
at Mme Melling's door for choosing a lovely little house to rent on the Crozon peninsula. She wasn't to know that as peninsulas go, Crozon comes almost as close to sans phares as one can get (or was she?). There are harbour lights of course (at Camaret notably) but only two lighthouses: Le Toulinguet which heads this post and Pointe de Morgat which we seem to have overlooked, or failed to find (the mists of time are so dense now I cannot be sure which). There is a Trabas likeness of the Morgat tower attached herewith, lifted from The Lighthouse Directory where you can find out more about this missed erection, should you be in need of such enlightenment. 

It is a particularly irritating aspect of French coastal administration in these parts that invasion, seemingly, is still anticipated by the hour. One cannot go round the grounds of Le Toulinguet but must gawp at it from afar, a boat, the beach, or risk life and limb doing some shoreline rock-hopping. High gates and threatening notices bar your progress on land. The French Navy use it as a signalling station you see. You'd have a field day with forts on this land area, by the way, the place is knee deep! Some of them are free to view as well, dating back to earlier insecurities in previous centuries. But this blog is phares sighted, not forts sighted.

Pointe de Morgat

As you can see Le Toulinguet (above) is a modest affair: JBH has made an image of it but its countenance is confined to the 40x50 Finistère poster and a greetings card. No sign of it in his bumper book of Phares : Histoire[s] de phares.  I had to take the aforementioned poster off the wall and photograph it. Le Toulinguet occults, three times every twelve seconds. It is on the pointe of the same name (accés interdit) and shows both red and white aspects, depending on whether you are about to wreck or are where you should be; that is, on course.

Beautiful coast, you know. So the lack of immediate phares is forgiven. We scooped Vieille, Eckmühl, Sein after all —all high score shiners. Sorry to overlook dinky little Morgat.  And there were many other compensations… as well. 2007: a very good trip and actually very well situated to take in the grade A lights nearby. It would be tempting to fill this post with glorious seascapes – but I am minded to focus on phares as far as is possible on this, the phares sighted bloggerama, so my watchword is: focus… focus…

Thanks to JBH for the image of Toulinguet, as per. And Mme Melling for her discernment.

update:

Here is the Pointe du Toulinguet phare in late February, 2026. The Western Approaches had a pretty rough start to the year so the damage to the roof may have been inflicted by those storm events. Are Phares and Balises responsible for activating repairs or is it down to the Navy, given the restricted military zone the phare is situated within? Does nobody care?