France · Bretagne
Where to Stay in Lorient, Bretagne
Lorient is a port city on the Atlantic coast of Brittany in France, born of the old French East India Company.
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Where to stay in Lorient
The right area depends on your trip — here's what each neighbourhood is best for.
Where you stay in Lorient turns on the town or the water. The city centre keeps the shops, the market, and the port within a walk, and staying downtown suits anyone here for the city. The rebuilt streets run wide and grey.
Rooms sit near the harbour. Out toward Keroman and the sea, the harbour opens to the ocean. A room by the water trades the centre for the submarine base, the sailing centre, and the boats to the islands.
The wide Atlantic opens past the edge. If you want the shops and the market, stay downtown; if you want the sea, take a room by the harbour. Either way, the water is close at hand.
About Lorient
Lorient is a Breton port of the sea and the East.
What is Lorient known for?
Founded to fit out the ships of the French East India Company, it took its name from the Orient trade, and it grew as a naval town that held a huge concrete submarine base, while each summer it fills for the great festival of Celtic music. Fishing boats crowd the harbour. Sea and music mark the city.
What are the main landmarks in Lorient?
The great submarine base looms over the harbour of Lorient. The vast concrete pens, built for the U-boats in the war, still stand by the water, the mark of the city, on the Keroman shore. An old company museum tells the older story.
The Compagnie des Indes museum keeps the tale of the East India trade, while the sailing centre and the fishing port mark the waterfront of Lorient.
What is the history of Lorient?
Lorient was born of the trade with the East. In the sixteen-hundreds the French East India Company built its shipyards on this shore to fit out the great vessels bound for India and China, and the town that grew around them took the name L'Orient, the East. Trade and the navy made the port.
Ships came and went with silk, spice, and porcelain, and in time the king's navy made Lorient one of its great bases on the Atlantic. War brought fire to the city. In the last great war the Germans built a vast submarine base of concrete on the harbour, and the Allied bombers flattened the old town around it, so Lorient was rebuilt anew in stone and concrete.
The town turned to the sea and the Celts. Its fishing fleet grew large, its sailors famous, and each August the city holds the great Interceltic festival, drawing pipers and dancers from all the Celtic lands. The submarine base still stands on the water.
Lorient keeps its harbour and its festival in Brittany.
Where is Lorient?
Lorient lies on the south coast of Brittany in western France, on the Atlantic. The city sits on a great natural harbour where three rivers meet the sea, sheltered behind an island and a headland, on the Bay of Biscay. Low green country rolls inland.
The Atlantic opens to the south.
What is the climate of Lorient?
Lorient has a mild, wet oceanic climate. Cool summers and soft winters cross the coast, kept even by the Atlantic, and rain falls in every season off the sea, with grey and changing skies. Sea winds sweep the harbour all year.
The coast stays mild and damp.
How do you get to Lorient?
Lorient lies on the south coast of Brittany, west of Vannes. Fast trains and the main road run to it from Rennes and Nantes along the coast, and an airport lies nearby, while ferries cross to the islands. From Lorient, buses fan out to the little ports along the Breton coast.
Most arrive by train from Rennes.
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Updated August 2026