Here are the available villas for rental in Brittany.

Brittany, France vs Cornwall, England

Cornwall is enjoying a renaissance. Surfing has never been more popular, explaining the boom in popularity of resorts such as Newquay and Sennen.
The county that used to be a place of soggy chips and dubious pasties is now awash with trendy bars and beach cafes serving food that holds its own against the best London has to offer.
But for some people, only Abroad will do. You want the beaches, the bracing walks, the scenery and the culture, but can't face the long haul down the M5 or the endless train ride from Paddington. And you want some better weather.
Happily, there is another Cornwall you can visit. A little farther away perhaps, but strangely familiar, with strong links to the British region from which it derives its name.
The old kingdom of Cornouaille in southern Brittany is one of France's most popular seaside destinations.
It lacks the glamour and the weather of the Cote d'Azur, but it lacks the crowds, too.
So how do they compare? I have had a family home in Cornwall for 20 years and know its attractions well.
This was my first visit to the delights of Sud Cornouaille and I was keen to see how it shaped up.
We rented a cottage near the village of Tregunc, which is five miles from Concarneau, a fishing port similar in atmosphere to (and twinned with) Penzance.
We checked the brochures and internet, and went for a chaumiere (thatched cottage) by the sea (a must), which had an enclosed garden and accepted dogs.
First impressions of this part of Brittany are all about space. Cornouaille's beaches are less dramatic than the surf-pounded shores of Newquay and Perranporth, say, but are much emptier, with outlandishly blue (and clean) water and miles of silver sand. ... more

The land of fish and ships

Brittany has long been a popular destination with British families - it's a handy hop across the Channel, you'll find plenty of self-catering accommodation and it's not too hot for the children.
As for the food, well, you can buy crepes anywhere and drink local cider in those strange rustic beakers. But what else might you expect?
Unsurprisingly, Breton cuisine is dominated by fish - the region's coastline makes up two-thirds of the French seaboard.
Some towns owe their very existence to seafood. Cancale, just east of St Malo, is built on oysters, while Erquy, further west, is the world scallop capital.
We stayed on the Cote d'Armoire, on the northern coast of Brittany, in a gite owned, and most importantly equipped, by a Frenchman, Michel Dubois.
Unusually for a holiday gite, the kitchen knives were razor sharp and the kitchen alone presented us with a huge range of possibilities.
We found garlic presses, salad spinners, a proper coffee machine, even a miniature machine for making raclette, that curious melted cheese dish native to the Alps 700 miles away.
So many gadgets, so little time. The empty fridge yawned at us like the opening of the Channel Tunnel. It was down to us to fill it.
The nearest market to Vieux Marche was at Plouaret, where local farmers come to sell their products once a week as they have for generations.
In France, the small farmer has not yet been bludgeoned into oblivion by the supermarket chains.
We bought some wonderful local cherries at £4.80 a kilo, some pungent organic goats' cheeses at £2 apiece, and local lamb chops at £7 for four.
It wasn't cheap - but the farmers have to make a living. The largest market in this part of Brittany - strangely ignored by the British, who tend to flock to the west coast - is on Thursdays at Lannion, the most important town in the region.
It is a dynamic, bustling place and the epicentre of the French telecommunications industry, served by fast TGV trains that whisk sleek businessmen in from Paris in under two and a half hours.
But on Thursday mornings the town thinks only of its stomach. ... more

Picture perfect Brittany

Finistere, in Western Brittany, may mean the end of the earth but to scores of artists, from the 1800s onwards, it has been a brave new world.
Turner was one of the first to be attracted by the countryside and unruly coastline. Corot, Monet, Renoir and Matisse were equally captivated.
But it was the artists who grouped themselves around Paul Gauguin in the small port of Pont-Aven, which art historians have called the Pont-Aven School, whose work shook the world.
Caring less about photographically reproducing a landscape and more about looking at things in a whole new way, Gauguin and the others, notably Emile Bernard and Paul Serusier, opened the doorway to modern art.
Gauguin, the centenary of whose death has been marked in Brittany this year, spent the summer of 1886 painting in Pont-Aven.
He was drawn by the wild, primitive nature of Brittany's landscape and people - the solid women in their colourful aprons and distinctive white headdresses, the religious festivals, the music, the sheer strangeness of a place whose inhabitants, originally from Wales and Cornwall, prized their separate Celtic identity.
Without leaving France, Gauguin could be abroad. Brittany was 100 different countries with l00 different costumes and in each corner, a different dialect.
He went back to Brittany five times before 1894 and produced some of his finest paintings there. It's easy to see why he was so seduced by Pont-Aven.
Just inland from the Aven Estuary, it's an immensely charming mixture of art galleries, biscuit shops, quayside restaurants and hotels.
In Gauguin's time, the little port was renowned for its hospitality. The Pension Gloanec, where he stayed on a tight budget, was one of 40 hotels which attracted artists from all over the world.
Beside the Aven, a riverside walkway, the Promenade Xavier-Grall, criss-crosses the rushing waters with wooden bridges.
The walk is dotted with ancient washing places of the kind used by the women who inspired Gauguin's impressionistic painting The Washerwomen Of Pont-Aven.
A longer walk leads to the Bois D'Amour, the Lover's Wood, where Gauguin gave his close friend Serusier a revolutionary lesson in abstract painting: 'How do you see those trees? They're yellow. So use yellow.'
My friend Anne and I followed the Rue Emile Bernard a short way out of town to see the old Breton Chapel of Tremalo. On a warm, spring day, a fresh breeze mingled with the smell of woodsmoke. An old man doffed his beret. ... more