Honfleur

Gazing at its cozy harbor lined with skinny, soaring houses, it's easy to overlook the historic importance of this port. For more than a thousand years, sailors have enjoyed Honfleur's ideal location, where the Seine River greets the English Channel, and 19th-century Impressionists were captivated by the town's unusual light — also the result of its river-meets-sea setting. Honfleur escaped the bombs of World War II and today offers a romantic port enclosed on three sides by sprawling outdoor cafés. Honfleur happily uses its past as a bar stool…and sits on it.