The Most Beautiful Lighthouses in Europe

17 places in 9 countries · updated 14 October 2026

1. 01 Tower of Hercules

   Torre de Hércules

   Spain · 6.3 km from A Coruña43.386° N 8.406° W

   • UNESCO World Heritage

   

   What's easy to miss standing in front of it is that you're looking at two buildings stacked on top of each other. In the eighteenth century the tower was restored in the Neoclassical style then in fashion, and that restoration wrapped a new stone skin around the structure rather than replacing it — so the smooth, symmetrical facade visible today is largely an 18th-century addition, while the Roman core it covers is still there underneath, load-bearing and original. UNESCO recognised exactly this layering when it listed the tower as a World Heritage Site in 2009: not a Roman ruin, and not really a Georgian folly either, but both at once.

   Did you know? Of the tower's roughly 55 metres, about 34 are surviving Roman masonry; the top 21 metres were added during the 18th-century restoration.

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2. 02 Chania Lighthouse

   Φάρος Χανίων

   Greece · 0.8 km from Chania35.519° N 24.017° E

   

   The site has been guarded for centuries. The Venetians, who ruled Crete from the thirteenth century until 1669, built the harbour defences and a first lighthouse here to protect the port against pirates and the Ottomans. After the Ottoman conquest of Chania in 1645 the light fell into ruin. Its present form dates from 1864, when it was rebuilt on the Venetian foundations during the period when Egyptian forces held Crete for the Ottoman Empire; only the base of the earlier tower remains. In 1915 a fixed light was installed and it joined the official Greek lighthouse network.

   Did you know? Because it stood inside a busy town, the lighthouse was built without any living quarters for a keeper.

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3. 03 Cordouan Lighthouse

   France45.586° N 1.173° W

   • UNESCO World Heritage

   

   The designer, the Parisian engineer Louis de Foix, treated the tower as a Renaissance monument rising out of the waves. A broad circular base of dressed limestone takes the force of the sea; above it the floors narrow as they climb, with keepers' quarters around the ground floor, a richly decorated royal apartment on the next level and, higher still, a domed chapel. Carved doorways, statuary and gilding were lavished on a building most people would only ever see from a deck. Between 1782 and 1789 the engineer Joseph Teulère raised the tower to reach sailors further out, and the plain Louis XVI upper storeys he added still contrast sharply with the ornate lower floors.

   Did you know? Louis de Foix spent eighteen years and his entire fortune on the tower and died in 1602 without seeing it finished; according to a legend, he lies buried somewhere inside.

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4. 04 Lindau Lighthouse

   Leuchtturm Lindau

   Germany · 6.9 km from Bregenz47.543° N 9.684° E

   

   The tower was built between 1853 and 1856 and first lit on 4 October 1856, taking over from the Mangturm, a medieval tower of around 1230 that had guided boats into the old harbour. It is a round stone tower 33 metres to the gallery, 24 metres around at the base, with a detail that very few lighthouses have: a large clock set into its facade, so that the harbour's time is read from the same tower as its light. The whole port had been laid out for the Bavarian state railway, whose line reached Lindau in 1853.

   Did you know? Facing the lighthouse across the harbour mouth, the six-metre Bavarian Lion was sculpted by Johann von Halbig and set up in 1856, the year the light was first lit.

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5. 05 Saint-Mathieu Lighthouse

   Phare de Saint-Mathieu

   France · 21.5 km from Brest48.330° N 4.771° W

   

   A light burned here long before the present tower. From the late seventeenth century the Royal Navy kept a lantern in the square tower of the abbey itself; in 1689 it tried out a closed glazed lantern there, a design that proved so much better in wind and rain that it was then adopted at other French lights. Monks tended the fire for a time in exchange for rights over wrecks, and the abbey tower survived the Revolution's sale of the ruins precisely because it served as a light. By the 1830s it was too low and too decrepit, and the navy built a new round granite tower, partly with stones taken from the abbey. It was lit on 15 June 1835.

   Did you know? To save fuel, the early coal fire in the abbey tower was lit only on the darkest autumn and winter nights, and it threatened to set the abbey ablaze.

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6. 06 Ploumanac'h Lighthouse

   Phare de Ploumanac'h

   France48.837° N 3.483° W

   

   The first lighthouse here dates from 1860. German troops blew it up on 4 August 1944 as they withdrew, and the present square tower, designed by the architect Henry Auffret, was built in 1946 and lit in 1948. It is about 15 metres high, left unpainted to show its warm granite, with a small red lantern at the top that marks the channel into the little harbour of Ploumanac'h. The tower is still in service and is not open inside.

   Did you know? Its crenellations and arrow-slit windows are a deliberate neo-medieval touch, making the post-war tower look more like a small castle keep than a beacon.

   More about Ploumanac'h Lighthouse →

7. 07 Beachy Head Lighthouse

   United Kingdom · 30.9 km from Brighton50.734° N 0.241° E

   

   It was built between 1900 and 1902 under Sir Thomas Matthews, engineer-in-chief of Trinity House, and first shone on 2 October 1902, about 165 metres out from the base of the cliff. The builders ran a temporary aerial cableway from the clifftop down to an iron platform in the sea, and some 3,660 tons of Cornish granite went into the tower. It replaced Belle Tout, the older lighthouse on the heights to the west, whose lamp, set so high, too often disappeared into sea mist and low cloud; Belle Tout still stands on the downs and is part of the same view.

   Did you know? Its original fog signal was explosive: keepers hung small charges on a jib outside the gallery and fired them electrically every five minutes in fog.

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8. 08 South Stack Lighthouse

   United Kingdom53.307° N 4.699° W

   

   The tower was designed by Daniel Alexander, surveyor to Trinity House, and first lit in 1809, originally with Argand oil lamps and reflectors. It stands 28 metres tall and throws its light roughly 24 nautical miles. Around 1840 a small railway was added so that a subsidiary lantern could be lowered down the cliff to sea level when fog hid the main light — a detail that tells you how often the high light was lost in cloud on this coast. The waters beyond were notorious: in the great Royal Charter gale of October 1859, more than 200 vessels were driven ashore or wrecked around the British coast. The light was automated in 1984 and is now monitored from Trinity House's centre in Harwich.

   Did you know? The Geological Society of London counts South Stack among Britain's top 100 geosites for the tightly folded sandstone and shale layers visible from the steps.

   More about South Stack Lighthouse →

9. 09 Tour de la Lanterne

   France · 1.3 km from La Rochelle46.156° N 1.157° W

   

   An older tower stood here in the early 13th century, closing the entrance of the town's first harbour. The present building was begun in 1445, wrapping around the earlier core, and took more than twenty years to finish; it was completed in 1468 thanks to money from Jehan Mérichon, five times mayor of La Rochelle and a counsellor to Louis XI. At that time it marked the south-western corner of the medieval ramparts and stood at the water's edge. It survived when Richelieu had the town walls razed after the great siege of 1627–28 and was later absorbed into the new fortifications of the 1680s.

   Did you know? The present tower was begun in 1445 and completed in 1468, funded in part by mayor Jehan Mérichon.

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10. 10 Tourlitis Lighthouse

    Τουρλίτης

    Greece37.843° N 24.946° E

    

    The first light on Tourlitis was lit in 1897. During the Second World War, in 1943, the tower was flattened in a German air raid, and for decades afterwards only a plain iron framework marked the rock. Its return was a private act of remembrance: the shipowner Alexandros Goulandris and his wife Marietta funded a faithful reconstruction in memory of their daughter Violanta, with the civil engineers Vasilis Tsogkas and Xenia Chalikiopoulou carrying out the work. Built in pale natural stone with a white gallery and lantern, the new tower was completed in the mid-1990s and the light shone again in 1995.

    Did you know? Its position on a lone sea-washed rock is considered unique among Greek lighthouses, which normally stand on headlands or larger islets.

    More about Tourlitis Lighthouse →

11. 11 Formentor Lighthouse

    Faro de Formentor

    Spain39.961° N 3.212° E

    

    The light entered service in 1863, in the reign of Isabel II, and it was considered the most difficult lighthouse in the Balearics to build. There was no road then: materials had to be carried along rough mule tracks across the peninsula, and the keepers and their families who lived in the buildings attached to the tower led an isolated life at the tip of the cape. The light still works, guiding ships through one of the busy passages between Mallorca and Menorca, and it now runs on solar power.

    Did you know? Its original lamp burned olive oil; the first optical apparatus was later replaced and reused in the La Mola lighthouse on Formentera.

    More about Formentor Lighthouse →

12. 12 La Jument Lighthouse

    Phare de la Jument

    France48.422° N 5.134° W

    

    Its origin is a private gift rather than a state programme. At the end of the nineteenth century a run of wrecks around Ushant and Molène — the worst being the steamer Drummond Castle in June 1896, lost with all but three of those aboard — pushed the question of new lights. Charles-Eugène Potron left 400,000 francs in his will for a lighthouse built of choice materials on one of the most dangerous points of this coast, with a deadline of a few years.

    Did you know? Storms were so violent that in December 1911, weeks after the first lighting, they spilled the mercury bath on which the lantern optics turned.

    More about La Jument Lighthouse →

13. 13 La Corbière lighthouse

    Jersey49.180° N 2.250° W

    

    The setting is the point. At low water a concrete causeway runs out from the headland across rock pools and patches of sand, and the lighthouse can be reached on foot; as the tide turns, the sea closes over the path again and the tower is left standing alone among the breakers. The approach is famous among photographers, above all at sunset, when the light goes down behind the tower and the wet causeway catches it.

    Did you know? In Jèrriais, the Jersey Norman language, 'We've passed La Corbière' is a way of saying the worst is over.

    More about La Corbière lighthouse →

14. 14 Nazaré Lighthouse

    Farol da Nazaré

    Portugal · 28.3 km from Leiria39.605° N 9.085° W

    

    The reason lies offshore. The Nazaré Canyon, one of the largest submarine canyons in Europe, runs roughly 230 kilometres out into the Atlantic and plunges to depths of more than 5,000 metres. It funnels and focuses incoming swell so that waves arriving at Praia do Norte are amplified far beyond those on neighbouring beaches. Praia do Norte has been the setting for a series of world records for the largest wave surfed: Garrett McNamara in 2011, Rodrigo Koxa in 2017, Maya Gabeira in 2018 and 2020, and Sebastian Steudtner, whose wave of about 26 metres in October 2020 set the mark.

    Did you know? In thick fog a siren on the fort sounds a ten-second blast every 35 seconds, successor to a compressed-air signal installed in 1952.

    More about Nazaré Lighthouse →

15. 15 Fanad Head Lighthouse

    Fanad Head Light

    Ireland · 36.1 km from Londonderry/Derry55.276° N 7.632° W

    

    The light owes its existence to a disaster. On 4 December 1811 the Royal Navy frigate HMS Saldanha was driven onto the coast here in a storm and more than 250 men were lost, among them the young captain William Pakenham; local tradition holds that the ship's parrot was the only survivor. Work on a light began in 1815 to a design by the engineer George Halpin on a budget of £2,000, and it was first lit on St Patrick's Day 1817. The present, taller tower replaced the original and came into operation on 1 September 1886; its light shines about 39 metres above the sea.

    Did you know? The first lantern used nine Argand oil lamps with parabolic reflectors; the light moved to paraffin in 1906 and to electricity in 1975.

    More about Fanad Head Lighthouse →

16. 16 Neist Point Lighthouse

    United Kingdom57.423° N 6.788° W

    

    The lighthouse was designed by David Alan Stevenson, of the famous Scottish lighthouse-building family, and first lit on 1 November 1909. The tower is 19 metres tall, its light standing 43 metres above the sea and visible for about 16 nautical miles. Supplies for the lighthouse and cottages were once hauled in by an aerial cableway. Since 1990 the light has been operated remotely by the Northern Lighthouse Board from Edinburgh, and the former keepers' cottages are now in private hands; the tower is a listed building.

    Did you know? The headland is built of dolerite from the Little Minch Sill Complex, molten rock that forced its way into Jurassic sediments about 60 million years ago.

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17. 17 Kallur Lighthouse

    Faroe Islands · 20.5 km from Klaksvík62.370° N 6.812° W

    

    The lighthouse itself is modest, built in 1927 to guard the northern approaches between the islands. Its setting is what has made it famous. Kalsoy is a long, thin island whose western coast is cliff from end to end, while a handful of tiny villages shelter in valleys on the east side. They are strung together by a single road that passes through four unlit tunnels, which has earned the island the local nickname of "the recorder", after the shape of the instrument and its holes. The northernmost tunnel, more than two kilometres long, leads to Trøllanes, the last village before the cape, and from there a path climbs over sheep pasture to the lighthouse.

    Did you know? Trøllanes, the hamlet below the lighthouse, means 'troll peninsula', and in 2020 it had only 13 residents.

    More about Kallur Lighthouse →