Cherbourg-Octeville, France

If you are arriving from Britain or Ireland, CHERBOURG may well be your port of arrival. Many people head straight out and on, yet the town offers a busy network of pedestrian streets lined with appealing stone facades, the labyrinth of alleyways known as boëls, some lively bars, and an impressive maritime museum in a converted Art Deco station. Napoleon inaugurated the transformation of what had been a rather poor, but perfectly situated, natural harbour into a major transatlantic port, by means of massive artificial breakwaters. An equestrian statue commemorates his boast that in Cherbourg he would "re-create the wonders of Egypt"; although there are as yet no pyramids nearer than the Louvre, he succeeded in providing the city with one of the biggest fortified harbours in the world.