La Rochelle

The towers frame the harbour entrance like stone gateposts, the gap between them just wide enough for the boats that still slip through at dawn. La Rochelle, on France's Atlantic coast, is a port with its defiance intact — Huguenot resistance, a siege survived, and a harbour that has refused to be anything other than itself for centuries — and the arcaded streets behind the quay keep the Atlantic rain off while the restaurants open to the water.

Three towers survive from the medieval defences of the old port: Saint-Nicolas and la Chaîne, both fourteenth-century, flank the harbour mouth where a heavy chain was stretched across the water at night, and la Lanterne stands beyond them. La Rochelle was the Protestant stronghold of the Atlantic, and Cardinal Richelieu's siege of 1627–28 blockaded the port for more than a year, starving the city into submission and ending Huguenot autonomy. Behind the Grosse Horloge clock gate, the old town is half-timbered houses, Renaissance façades and arcaded streets built to shelter merchants and their goods from the weather, with a commercial tradition that runs from the salt and wine trade to the yachts in the marina today. The aquarium on the harbour is among the largest in Europe — sharks, jellyfish and twelve thousand marine animals across three floors — and the Île de Ré is just across the bridge.