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Sophie Z'OursI kept the most amazing lighthouse for the end.
This one is located more in the North and is much taller than the two others.
It is the lighthouse of our virgin island. Oh, that's a very very small island (I should say a rock island): just a little land around the lighthouse...
The name in French is "Phare de l'Ile Vierge". Phare means lightouse, ile means island and vierge means virgin.
Actually, there are two lighthouses: the old lighthouse (the smaller one) was replaced by a new tower in 1902, but it still holds the fog signal for the station.
The old lighthouse was built from 1842 to 1845. It is 33 m tall. It is a squared tower. Its light was visible in a 14 nautical miles range. It still hosts the guardian house. Its fog signal is a 3 seconds sound every minute.
The "new" lighthouse was built from 1897 to 1902. Like the other lighthouses I described in my previous posts it was made of granit stones. It is 82,5 m tall. This is the highest lighthouse of Europe and the highest handcut stone lighthouse of the world. Its diameter at the bottom is 13,2 m.
The inner walls are covered in white silica tiles : a total of 12500 tiles (30 cmx30 cm)! The price reached about 1 million Francs! Thanks to these tiles, the lighhouse never needs to be cleaned, as it stays clean!
To go to the top of the lighhouse, there are 365 steps. To reach the ligh itself, you must add 35 more steps.
It has a white light visible up to 27 nautical miles. A blast avery 5 seconds.
Its position: 48° 38' 24" N 4° 34' 6" W
When you reach the last granit step, you cannot sea the bottom floor.
As the lighthouse is on an island we need to take a boat to reach it. during touristic season, there is a boat every 30 minutes. We were proposed to pay to go to two island: the one of the lighthouse and another small island nearby. It was a bit expensive but so pleasant we have no regret. We had to pay too for the visit of the lighthouse.
First we went to the other island wich has a beautiful beach and almost nothing else: there is only one house. The main inhabitants are obviously rabbits due to all evidences we found of their presence. We had to mind were we put our feet! There was a memorial cross facing the sea, lost among the rocks.
After we were given half an hour to visit the small island or enjoy the beach, we took again the boat to go to the Virgin Island.
Here are the pictures:
The island with the lighthouses viewed from the boat:
Once on the island:
Once into the lighthouse: steps to climb:
Every 50 steps we are told where we are:
Here we could see both the bottom and the top:
Pictures in the machinery room:
That engine holds a huge mercury tank:
This tank holds the whole part containing the light; we can move that part by hand until we face the hole through which we can see the Fresnel lens:
Finaly oustide; after getting wet due to our long exercise to reach the top, we arrived outside where it's chilled and windy; please forget my awful hair dress (the wind is the culprit). Believe me, i was not feeling too hot in my polar vest:
That's a sample of the kind of views we got from the top:
Don't you think the old lighthouse looks pretty small?
After a moment on the top, it was time to go down. Believe me or not, after a fair amount of steps, I just felt like it was horrible difficult to decend more! Sort of fear? I don't know exactly. I was not feeling tired, but pretty strange actually. I was dreading each new step down... how bizarre! No need to tell you how relieved I felt once I finally reached the bottom of the lighthouse.
Bye bye small island! Here we are back and you can see partly our boat:
We had a wonderful time!
Enjoy!
Beary hugs,
Sophie.
Bine-TeddiesLooks very pretty Sophie! I am afraid of heights so I am not sure i would have gone up there. 
Self-cleaning tiles - I could use them in my bathroom 
Past Time BearsWow, Sophie - that lighthouse is soooooo awesome! And you climbed all the way to the top . . . I'm waaaay impressed! Thanks so much for showing us the lighthouses - it's been lots of fun!
Patsy Lake BearsSophie that is some lighthouse ... thank you again for the wonderful reporting and photo's..
Terries BearsWow, that is quite a climb but you have a beautiful view when you get to the top! There is a huge difference between the old and the new lighthouse. Thanks so much for sharing your pictures, I love the ocean!
Matilda Huggington-beareAgain a wonderful presentation Sophie. You should go on holiday more often. :hug:
I'm curious though. Why are lighthouses hollow.? Why not normal floors? and this 'mercury tank'?
What is that? I certainly could have used those tiles in my bathroom yesterday. Had to scrub it from top to toe.
It took me two hours. Now that lighthouse would need to be continuously scrubed in order to keep it clean aye?
No wonder they put in self cleaning tiles.
Wendy 
Sophie Z'OursHe he he, Wendy, you've got quite a lot of questions!
Right, toexplain you about the lighthouses not having normal floors: actually it depends about the lighhouse location: if they are isolated on a rock island in the sea, they used to be inhabited and so they had some floors which where used as living places.
Concerning the ones we visited, they had all their guardian house nearby, so they did not need to be arrange to host inhabitants and so the simpler the better.
The mercury tank in the lighthouse of our virgin island was one of the systems that was used to allow the light to turn as an automatism. I cannot explain you exactly how it works as I don't know it myself... sorry.
Nowadays, all remote lighthouses are now fully automatic and controled by computers. They are not inhabited anymore. Sometimes there are some workers who come for checking or repairs and that's all.
I hope that answers your questions!
Beary hugs,
Sophie.
DoodlebearsSophie, thanks once again for the pictures. This is the only way I'll be seeing inside and up inside a lighthouse. I'm a real scardy-cat when it comes to heights.
I'm being brave when I look out of my bedroom window. 
This was a really interesting holiday you had Sophie, thanks for sharing.
Hugs Jane. 
