Concarneau is a working fishing port in southern Finistère, one of the largest in Brittany and one of the few French coastal towns where the trawlers still outnumber the pleasure yachts. The town is dominated by the Ville Close — a medieval walled town set on an island in the harbour, connected to the mainland by two short bridges — which is one of the best-preserved fortified settlements in France and the main draw for visitors.
The Ville Close is compact enough to walk in an hour, but rewards more time. The granite walls, mostly 14th to 17th-century, run all the way around the island and still contain the bulk of the old buildings. Within, the lanes are narrow, the shops and restaurants are aimed squarely at summer tourists, and the crowds can be formidable in July and August. Come in the off-season and the place has a different character: quieter, a bit melancholy, and more real. The fishing boats unload on the quays just outside the walls, and the smell of the sea is omnipresent.
The fish here is excellent and reasonably priced: the covered fish market near the fishing harbour sells to retail customers, and the restaurants around the port do good moules-frites, grilled langoustines, and the local speciality cottriade — a Breton fish stew. Quimper, the regional capital, is twenty kilometres to the northwest and easily reached by bus or car.