48°37′N · 2°05′W — Saint-Briac-sur-Mer
Twelve rooms in a 1912 semaphore station on the Côte d'Émeraude, three floors of limewash, brass and deep windows — forty steps down to a beach that is twelve metres of sand at low water and a warm green sea at high.
No televisions. No lobby music. One long table for supper on Thursdays. Two nights minimum, because one is never enough here.
01 — The desk
Reception 08:00–21:00 · +33 2 99 40 18 06 · bonjour@hotelmaree.fr
Available
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Total
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All taxes included except tourist tax · pay on arrival, no card held
Held — reference
We've pencilled it in the book. You'll get an email in a minute; reply to it or call and it's yours. Nothing charged.
02 — The house
Semaphore station no. 4, built 1912, slept again in 2019
Signalmen lived here in pairs: one to read the horizon, one to keep the log. We kept both rooms, the brass speaking-tube, and the iron stair that groans in the third step and always will.
The restoration took two summers with a Breton mason, an architect from Dinan and very little hurry. Lime plaster, chestnut floors from a fallen stand in Huelgoat, salvaged portholes, hot-water under the bathroom stone.
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Rooms
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People staff
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Steps to sand
01
Radiant floors in every bathroom, towels from a mill in Fougères changed every third day (tell us if you'd rather daily), and showers with actual pressure. Deep windows, shutters that close properly, and a wool blanket at the foot of each bed that guests keep trying to steal.
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No televisions, no minibar, no coffee machine noise at 6am, no playlist, no gym, no "signature scent". The reasoning is the same in every room: you came to a place where things happen on their own schedule, not to watch someone else's.
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Six of us run twelve rooms. Breakfast is between 07:30 and 10:30; rooms are turned between 09:00 and 11:30; the front door is staffed 08:00–21:00, after which the key lives in the hall hook and you let yourself in quietly. If you need a late checkout on a Sunday we can usually manage it — just ask at breakfast, not at 11:55.
03 — Twelve rooms, five ways to be
Rates are per night for two, breakfast separate, seasonal
— Every room: linen sheets, wool blanket, hand-thrown basin, kettle with loose-leaf, fan, no TV, shutters that latch.
— Cots free (in three rooms), one dog per ground-floor room at 15 €, extra bed 55 € in La Cabane only.
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04 — At the tideline
Everything below happens at a time dictated by the sea
Six things we genuinely do, with times and prices, so you can plan. The board by the door is written in chalk each evening for the following day.
38 €
Forty-five minutes on the flats with Yann, waders provided (to size 47), a knife lesson and the first oyster of your life eaten where it grew.
Free
A 1920s enclosed bath at the bottom of the path, filled by hand at the turn. Best 90 minutes before high water. Towels warm, water is not: 11–17 °C.
Free
Sign the board at dinner and come down with Maëlle. You'll have flour in your hair for the rest of the holiday. Children under 8 need a grown-up and a joke.
42 €
Eleven kilometres of GR 34 with Marie, gorse in the way, guillemots overhead, and a packed lunch in waxed cloth eaten on the seawall.
75 €
Nine seats, one seating, everything from inside forty kilometres. Vegetarian is the default, fish arrives when the boats allow it. Wine from the Loire and Anjou.
28 €
Twenty-five minutes of rowing with Stéphane to the little island opposite, four seats. Runs if the coefficient is above 70. It rarely runs in September, and it's glorious when it does.
In the house
Outside
With the children
05 — The table
Fourteen seats · one seating · closed Mondays & February
Open kitchen, two cooks, a wood fire that Vincent has opinions about.
Breakfast is served in the sail loft until 10:30 — bread, buttered with salted Bordier, soft eggs from L'Hermitage, fruit compote, coffee from Dinan. Supper is a set menu that changes daily; what follows is from last Thursday, to show you the shape of it.
one of three
with two sides
all three
Supper, 4 courses
75 €
per person
Wine pairing, 4 glasses
38 €
Loire & Anjou, mostly
Breakfast
14 €
07:30–10:30
Allergies and hard no's matter more than the menu — tell us at booking and we'll cook around them. Children eat what adults eat, halved and at 6:45.
06 — Getting here, and when to come
Côte d'Émeraude · Ille-et-Vilaine · 35800
By rail
2 h 20 + 30′
Paris Montparnasse → Saint-Malo, direct TGV inOui, up to 9 a day.
By car
4 h 10 from Paris
A13 then A84 to Dol-de-Bretagne, D12 to Châteauneuf, then the coast road.
By air
18 min
Dinard–Saint-Malo (DNR): seasonal flights from London City, Southampton, Manchester, Birmingham.
On foot & by bike
GR 34
The coastal path goes through our garden gate. Many walk the section Cap Fréhel → Saint-Malo in a day and stop here to arrive.
For the day-tripper list
30–60 min
Saint-Malo intra-muros 28 km · Cap Fréhel 20 km · Étel oyster park 6 km · Dinan 34 km · Mont-Saint-Michel 55 km / 50 min.
Seasons & what they feel like
| Window | From | Why (or why not) |
|---|---|---|
| Nov – Mar | 165 € | Gales, nobody on the beach, fires lit at 4 pm. Closed 6 Jan – 20 Feb. |
| Apr – May | 190 € | Gorse yellow, 16 °C, the best light of the year. Book Easter early. |
| Jun & Sep | 225 € | Long evenings, village alive but not full. Locals say come then. |
| Jul – Aug | 265 € | Warm, bright, busy market on Tuesdays. 5-night minimum 14 Jul – 25 Aug. |
| Oct | 190 € | Oyster season opens, shells on the table, the last of the sea baths. |
Live rates appear when you check dates at the desk — the calculator applies the season automatically.
07 — What people write in the book
9.4 / 10 · 214 verified stays · 71% return
“We came for three nights and re-arranged the week. The tide decides everything here, and by the second morning that felt like the relief, not the inconvenience.”
Judith R. · Hamburg
“The 6 a.m. bread was the reason we had children. They still ask about the man with the flour.”
Contre-Jour · September
Tom & Aoife · Cork
“We walked the GR in four days and they dried our wetsuits, our boots and our maps. Also no Wi-Fi in the rooms, which I resented for a day and then thanked.”
Marée Basse · June, with the dog
B. Ndiaye · Brussels
“I wrote nine hundred usable pages at the desk under the north window. The coffee, the silence and the grey sea did the rest.”
Contre-Jour · November, 11 nights
08 — Letters from the tide
Written by whoever is on reception, usually about weather. Roughly 2,400 people read it. Unsubscribe in one click; we won't pass your address to anyone, ever.
Next new moon — …: coefficient 102, very low water at 05:40