Chausey Islands (Îles Chausey)

For centuries, granite quarried from Chausey built some of Normandy's greatest monuments. Monks from Mont-Saint-Michel began extracting stone here as early as the 11th century, and the rock later paved Baron Haussmann's Paris sidewalks and reconstructed Saint-Malo's walls after World War II. At the industry's peak in the 19th century, up to 500 Breton stonecutters lived in temporary villages across 37 islets.

A traditional saying claims Chausey has "52 islands like weeks in a year, 365 islets like days in a year." While poetic rather than precise, the numbers reflect how dramatically the landscape transforms with the tides. The archipelago's granodiorite rock is approximately 600 million years old, formed during the Cadomian mountain-building period.

The waters surrounding Chausey host over 400 bottlenose dolphins, the largest resident population in Western Europe. These dolphins can often be spotted during the ferry crossing from Granville. Grey seals also regularly haul out on the rocks at low tide, though they do not yet breed on the islands.

During World War II, German forces painted the 1847 lighthouse in camouflage patterns to hide it from Allied bombers targeting the English Channel. Traces of this wartime paint remained visible until a full restoration in the 1990s finally removed them. The lighthouse was designated a Monument Historique in 2009.