Plage de l'Écluse

Plage de l'Écluse is the central and most celebrated beach of Dinard — a resort town that reached the height of its fashionable era in the 1890s when wealthy British and American families built the extraordinary collection of Victorian and Edwardian villas that still characterise the town's skyline. The beach was the social stage for this golden age: the colourful striped bathing tents (cabines de plage) that are the visual signature of the beach today are a deliberate period recreation, maintained to preserve the Belle Époque atmosphere that makes Dinard unique among French Atlantic resorts.

The beach sits within the Rance estuary mouth, facing north across the estuary towards St-Malo whose famous granite ramparts are visible directly across the water — a distance of only 1.3km separable by ferry in 10 minutes, though the contrast in character between the two towns could not be greater. Where St-Malo is a busy, commercial, historically layered walled town, Dinard is quiet, bourgeois, residential, and firmly Belle Époque in its self-presentation. The Promenade du Clair de Lune (Moonlight Promenade) that runs along the seafront is famous for its summer evening illuminations and flower gardens.

The Breton Atlantic tidal range is one of the most dramatic in Europe: at Dinard, the difference between high water springs and low water springs can approach 13 metres, among the highest values recorded in continental Europe. At low tide, vast sand flats extend far beyond the beach and walking on the exposed estuary sand reveals a completely different landscape of tidal pools, seaweed gardens, and distant exposed rocks. The Sentier de Grande Randonnée (GR34) coastal path passes through Dinard providing outstanding clifftop walking in both directions.