Harbour

Pont Aven

Name: Pont Aven
Address: Pont-Aven, FR
Telephone: +33298060035

3.4Pont-Aven, FranceMorbihan

Maximum draught: 2 m

Tidal basin in the town of Pont-Aven, about 4 NM up the Aven river from its mouth at Port Manec'h, in southern Finistère.

Guide

Approach and anchoring

Enter the Aven from Port Manec'h, then 4 NM upriver following the marked channel. Bar at the river mouth, approach on a rising tide. Draught up to 2 m possible at high water. Moorings are on buoys or fore-and-aft in the basin. Reach the town quay only near high water, the upper basin dries out at low water.

Practical

Around 20 places on buoys and alongside. Fuel station in town. Water on the quay. All shops, bakeries, banks and restaurants within 200 m of the quay. Tender needed to reach boats on buoys.

Ashore

Musée de Pont-Aven with permanent collections on the École de Pont-Aven painters at 150 m from the quay. Bois d'Amour footpath along the Aven at 300 m, walked by Gauguin and Sérusier. Chapelle de Trémalo at 1 km with the wooden Christ that inspired Gauguin's Yellow Christ of 1889.

History

Paul Gauguin stayed in Pont-Aven in 1886 and again from 1888 to 1890, working at the Pension Gloanec with Émile Bernard, Paul Sérusier and other painters who formed the École de Pont-Aven. Sérusier painted Le Talisman in the Bois d'Amour in 1888, a foundational work of the Nabi movement.

Story

The local Traou Mad butter biscuit has been made in Pont-Aven since 1920 at the Biscuiterie Penven on rue du Général de Gaulle, a few minutes' walk from the quay.