Morlaix

Morlaix is a town of 15,000 in the north of the Finistère, at the head of a deep tidal estuary, and it is dominated — the word is exact — by a railway viaduct 292 m long and 62 m high that strides straight across the middle of it.

Built in 1861–63 for the Paris–Brest line, it is the emblem of the town and one of the strangest urban sights in France: two tiers of granite arches with streets, shops and houses continuing underneath as though nothing had happened.

The viaduct

The lower tier carries a public walkway, open in season, which is the way to see the town: from up there the estuary, the harbour and the roofs are all laid out at once.

Trains still run over the top. The viaduct was bombed in 1943 and repaired, and it has survived every proposal to replace it.

The old town

Morlaix made its money on linen — the toiles de Bretagne — and on privateering, and the merchants’ houses show it. The local speciality is the maison à pondalez: a tall narrow house built round an internal courtyard with a spiral staircase and wooden galleries crossing overhead, found nowhere else in France.

• Maison à Pondalez, Grand’Rue — the best preserved, open to visitors
• Maison de la Duchesse Anne — a second one, from about 1530
• Grand’Rue and Place des Otages — the timber-framed centre
• Musée de Morlaix — in the Jacobin church, on the town’s history and Breton art
• Église Saint-Melaine — flamboyant Gothic, fifteenth century

The town motto

In 1522 an English raiding force sacked Morlaix while the men were away at a fair; they returned, found the English drunk in the cellars, and killed them. The town arms show a lion and an English leopard with the motto S’ils te mordent, mords-les — if they bite you, bite them back. The English came back three years later and burnt the town anyway, which is why the château no longer exists.

The bay

The Baie de Morlaix opens north to the Channel, with the Château du Taureau on its island in the middle — a fort built by the townspeople in 1542 after the English affair, rebuilt by Vauban, later a prison, and reachable by boat in season.

Beyond it lie the beaches of Carantec and Plougasnou, and the Enclos paroissiaux — the walled parish closes of Saint-Thégonnec, Guimiliau and Lampaul-Guimiliau, 20 minutes inland, with their calvaries and carved porches, and the greatest concentration of religious sculpture in Brittany.

Getting to Morlaix

• By train — on the Paris–Brest TGV line, about 3 h 15 from Paris; 30 minutes from Brest, an hour and a half from Rennes. The station is at the top of the town, by the viaduct.
• By car — the N12 dual carriageway, free. Brest 60 km, Rennes 180 km. See parking in France.

Around Morlaix

• The parish closes — Saint-Thégonnec and Guimiliau, 20 minutes south
• Roscoff — 25 minutes north, the ferry port and the onion town
• Côte de Granit Rose — 45 minutes east, the pink granite coast
• Carantec — 15 minutes, beaches and the Château du Taureau boats
• Paimpol and Tréguier — an hour east

When to go

May to September. The Saturday market spreads through the whole centre and is one of the largest in Brittany. Morlaix is a working town rather than a resort, so it stays open and reasonably priced through the season.

See Brittany.

Nearby

Other places on this site within easy reach, as the crow flies:

• Locronan — 61 km
• Quimper — 68 km
• Moncontour — 92 km
• Lorient — 99 km

Weather in Morlaix

Updated: 28 October 2026