EZTrip.com International Destination Guide and Hotel Listings

HUELGOAT is the halfway point between Morlaix and Carhaix on the minor road D769, and it makes a pleasant overnight stop, next to its own small lake . Spreading north and east from the village is the Forêt de Huelgoat , a landscape of trees, giant boulders and waterfalls tangled together in primeval chaos - or at least it was up until 1987, when the hurricane of that October demonstrated just how fragile the forest really was, just how miraculous had been its long survival, by smashing it to smithereens in the space of fifteen minutes. After several years of cleaning up, the forest has now returned to a fairly close approximation of its former glories, and it is once again possible to walk for several kilometres along the various paths that lead into the depths of the woods.

One or two of the village's hotels were too hard hit by the post-hurricane decline in tourism to survive, but the Hôtel du Lac , beside the lake at 12 rue du Général-de-Gaulle (tel 02.98.99.71.14; 220-300F/34-46; closed mid-Nov to mid-Dec), is still there, offering well-refurbished rooms and good food. Also beside the lake, on the road towards Brest, the two-star Camping du Lac (tel 02.98.99.78.80; closed mid-Sept to mid-June) comes complete with swimming pool.