Quiberon is a thin finger of granite that points south into the Atlantic from the Breton coast, fourteen kilometres long and in places hardly a couple of hundred metres wide.
The way in is a narrow causeway, a tombolo, where the road and a single railway line squeeze between dunes and sea at Penthièvre, guarded by a fort that has been a prison and a battlefield. It was here in 1795 that émigré royalists, landed by British ships, were defeated by Republican troops under Hoche, and the story is still told with feeling. Earlier, in 1759, the great naval battle of Quiberon Bay was fought off these shores, where the British fleet defeated the French in a gale, one of the turning points of the Seven Years' War.
On a motorbike this is a joyous place in the right season. The D768 down the middle is straight and fast, and the narrow lanes toward the coast twist among low stone houses with blue shutters. In July and August it is overrun, and the one road in and out can crawl, so go in May, June or September, or early in the day. Wind is the major factor: gusts across the isthmus can be severe, and the Côte Sauvage has no barriers worth the name, so keep back from edges.
Nearby Carnac, with its thousands of standing stones, lies a short ride away. Quiberon is where the salted-butter caramel was supposedly invented, and its sardine canneries made the town rich; you will find tins in the shops. Quiberon town, with about five thousand people, has fuel, restaurants and the ferries to Belle-Île, Houat and Hoëdic, and Saint-Pierre-Quiberon has a smaller supply of shops. Fill the tank before you reach the causeway if you can, because queues for the stations in high summer can be long.