Concarneau, Musée de la Pêche (Vive! L'art de la maquette!)

I recently passed through the southern coast of Brittany where in Concarneau (Finistère) I visited a small museum devoted to commercial Fishing (Le Musée de la Pêche). This is located in the "Ville Close" inside the port which means that it is a walled town inside the city itself. This is not to be confused with "une maison close" which is a French term for whore house. But of course I did. I instantly had visions of an entire city walled away from the real world and adorned with windows of women like in a film by Fellini. 

In any event, St Malo is another example of a walled town inside a larger city albeit on a much larger scale. 

I am sucker for museums of any sort, any kind of museum really... no kidding. I go to all of them, anywhere in the world. The museum is still one of the last bastions of studious joy left in an ever increasingly doltish world. And, I visit them everywhere I go in this crazy world when I travel. Few exceptions.

I have enclosed photos of this marvelous little museum in Concarneau where I spent a few delicious hours. It comprises a workshop studio for making 'maquettes' out of wood and other materials, and where they teach so to assure these ongoing traditions. Indeed, France is particularly concerned with keeping these small métiers alive and well, thankfully. 

These are simple, small and didactic models showing every aspect of the fishing process from the catch to the canning rooms. A few hours in a place like this and one becomes a kid all over again.

Vive la France! Vive la jeunesse!