Brand new 4 to 5 bedroom house between town and sea — Cancale, Ille-et-Vilaine

A south-west facing plot of 335 m² in a quiet position between the town and the sea at Cancale, near the schools, with free choice of builder. At this price it is one of the two most affordable ways into Cancale that we have — and Cancale is not a cheap place to buy.

South-west is the aspect you want. It puts the afternoon and evening sun on the terrace and the main living room, which is when a garden in Brittany actually gets used.

The house is our 150 m² design of four to five bedrooms, with two bathrooms and a garage. The servicing needs confirming with the seller and is quoted as part of the works.

About Cancale

Cancale is where France buys its oysters, and that is not a figure of speech. The bay below the town holds hundreds of hectares of beds, laid out in the shallows of the Baie du Mont-Saint-Michel, and the tide uncovers them twice a day. At the Pointe des Crolles the market sells them by the dozen on paper plates, and people sit on the sea wall to eat them and throw the shells onto the beach — a mound that has been building for generations.

The town has two halves. La Houle is the old fishing port at the bottom of the hill, with the quay, the boats, the restaurants and the seafront; the upper town has the church, the shops, the schools, the supermarkets and the everyday business of a working commune of around five thousand people.

The coast either side is superb. The GR34 runs north around the Pointe du Grouin, with its view across to the Île des Landes and, on a clear day, to Granville and the Îles Chausey. South, the bay opens towards Mont-Saint-Michel, which stands on the horizon from half the roads around the town.

Saint-Malo is fifteen minutes west, with its hospital, its walled city, its ferry port and its TGV station reaching Paris in under three hours. Mont-Saint-Michel is forty minutes, Dinard and its airport half an hour, Rennes an hour.