Photo : Jean-Jacques Abalain / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Concarneau
Concarneau, in Finistère, is a fishing port whose historic centre is the Ville Close, a fortified islet linked to the land by bridges. Its ramparts were reinforced by Vauban around 1680, the defence improvement work being completed in 1694. You enter by a gate and move between the lanes; a walkway lets you follow the enclosure with a view of the port.
The town is also known for the Filets Bleus festival. The first edition took place on 10 September 1905, in the middle of the sardine crisis: an industrialist, the town's magistrate Louis-Marie-Samuel Billette de Villeroche, proposed organising a charity festival for the benefit of sailors and their families. The name comes from the colour of the fishermen's nets. Today, the festival still takes place every year in mid-August. Concarneau also welcomed many painters in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
