Experience the best of Gloucester

Gloucester sits on Cape Ann, a granite headland north-east of Boston, and has been a fishing port since 1623, which makes it one of the oldest in the country. The Man at the Wheel, a bronze fisherman at the helm on the harbourfront, honours the fishermen lost at sea, and the town was the home port of the boat in the book The Perfect Storm. A Catholic church with blue-domed towers, dedicated to Mary as protector of seafarers, watches over the harbour, and Portuguese and Sicilian families still shape the town's culture.

Rocky Neck, one of the country's oldest art colonies, and the Cape Ann Museum hold harbour paintings, and Hammond Castle is a stone castle built in the 1920s above the sea. Good Harbor and Wingaersheek are the main beaches, and Halibut Point State Park has an old granite quarry. Rockport, with its red fishing shack known as Motif Number 1 and the shops of Bearskin Neck, is a short drive away, and whale-watching boats head for Stellwagen Bank.

Haddock, cod and lobster come off the boats, and fried clams and chowder are served at the seafood shacks. St Peter's Fiesta in late June brings Italian-American processions and boat races. Sea fog drifts over the harbour in summer.