The Carloforte harbour front is the social centre of the island — a row of pastel-painted buildings, fishing boats, and sailing yachts along a compact quay where the ferry from the mainland docks. The main piazza, Piazza Carlo Emanuele III, opens off the waterfront and is shaded by tall palms, with café terraces facing the sea.
The lanes running uphill from the harbour are the most interesting part of the town — steep, narrow, and lined with the same Ligurian-style houses you would find in the caruggi of Genoa. The dialect you might overhear, Tabarchino, is a form of Ligurian Italian that has survived here for three centuries while largely dying out elsewhere. The small Museo Civico in the old town covers the island's Tabarchino history with some good archival material.