The Old Port (Vieux Port)

Concarneau's Old Port, the Vieux Port, is where the town's fishing story is easiest to read. The harbour opens onto the Atlantic on the south coast of Finistère in Brittany, and just across a narrow channel sits the Ville Close, a small walled island known as the Ville Close (Closed City) whose granite ramparts were begun in the Middle Ages and strengthened in the seventeenth century under the supervision of Vauban, Louis XIV's military engineer. A short footbridge links the island to the quays on the mainland side, so a visit to the port and a walk into the walled town naturally run together.

The working harbour is the draw. Concarneau became one of the major French ports for tuna and sardines, and boats still unload here, so the quays smell of diesel, fish and sea air rather than of a theme park. The nets hung out to dry and the stacked crates give the waterfront a practical, unpolished look that sits well against the pale stone of the ramparts. Each August the town hosts the Festival des Filets Bleus, a folk festival that grew out of a charity for sardine fishermen's families, and the Old Port is one of its focal points.

Inside the walls, the cobbled streets of the Ville Close are lined with crêperies, shops selling Breton biscuits and sailor's jerseys, and houses with slate roofs. The Musée de la Pêche, the fishing museum on Rue Vauban, is the natural companion to the port. It tells the story of the trade through boat models, photographs, dioramas and the everyday tools of the fishermen, and it makes the boats you see at the quay easier to understand. Another fishing-related museum, the Musée du Filet, is listed nearby in Concarneau, so the town offers more than one angle on the same subject.

A good way to see the area is to start on the mainland quay and look across at the ramparts, then cross the footbridge and follow the walkway along the top of the walls, where the views run over the port, the open water and the roofs of the Ville Close. Light is best in the early evening, when the granite turns warm and the fishing boats return. Photographers will find plenty of subjects, from masts and ropes to reflections in the harbour water.

The Old Port suits anyone who likes towns with a clear sense of purpose: couples on a walk, families who want boats and a castle-like wall in the same outing, and travellers curious about how Brittany's coast made its living. Nearby you will also find the Concarneau Aquarium and the town's beaches, including Les Sables Blancs, which makes the port an easy anchor for a full day in the area.