Cape Ann: Gloucester, Rockport, and Essex

Gloucester is America's oldest seaport, and it still works like one: the harbor fills with working fishing boats, the waterfront smells like salt and diesel, and the catch comes in daily. That authenticity is exactly why people love it. It is a real town with real industry, not a postcard.

The same harbor light that feeds the fleet drew artists for generations. Rocky Neck, across the water from downtown, is one of the oldest working artist colonies in the country, and studios still open their doors to visitors. Gloucester manages to be gritty and beautiful at the same time, which is a hard combination to find.

Rockport started as a granite town and remade itself as an art colony. Bearskin Neck, the narrow stone peninsula at the harbor, is lined with former fishermen's shacks turned galleries and shops, and the little red fishing shack on the wharf is said to be one of the most painted buildings in America.

Rockport lives at a slower pace. Front Beach and Long Beach are long-standing favorites in the summer, and the year-round residents keep the village real when the crowds leave. It is a small town, and it knows it.

Essex built ships. Its yards launched thousands of wooden vessels over the centuries, a tradition the Essex Shipbuilding Museum keeps alive, and the town still hugs the river that made it possible.

It also gave the world the fried clam: Woodman's of Essex fried the first one in 1916, and the shack still draws lines out the door in season. Between the river, the marshes, and the clam shacks, Essex is the North Shore in its most honest form.