The first sizeable town you come to east of Bénodet is CONCARNEAU , where the third most important fishing port in France does a reasonable job of passing itself off as a holiday resort. Its greatest asset is its Ville Close , the small and very well-fortified old city located a few metres offshore on an irregular rocky island in the bay. This can get too crowded for comfort in high summer, but otherwise it's a real delight. Like those of the citadelle at Le Palais on Belle-Île, its ramparts were completed by Vauban in the seventeenth century. The island itself, however, had been inhabited for at least a thousand years before that, and is first recorded as the site of a priory founded by King Gradlon of Quimper.

Concarneau boasts that it is a ville fleurie , and the flowers are most in evidence inside the walls, where climbing roses and clematis swarm all over the various gift shops, restaurants and crêperies. Walk the central pedestrianized street to the far end, and you can pass through a gateway to the shoreline to watch the fishing boats go by. In summer, however, the best views of all come from the promenade on top of the ramparts (daily: May, June & Sept 10am-6pm; July & Aug 10am-9pm; 5F/?0.76).

The Musée de la Pèche , immediately inside the Ville Close (daily: mid-June to mid-Sept 9.30am-8pm; rest of year 9.30am-12.30pm & 2-6pm; 36F/?5.49), provides an insight into the traditional life Concarneau shared with so many other Breton ports, illuminating the history and practice of catching whales, tuna - with dragnets the size of central Paris - herring and sardines.