This pretty little medieval town in Côtes-d'Armor is on the list of the Most Beautiful Villages of France and is also part of the Small Towns of Character network.
Perched on a hill, Moncontour is still surrounded by its ramparts built in the 13th and 14th centuries.
Its side streets are lovely for a walk, admiring its half-timbered houses and bourgeois residences along the way.
In the 16th century, the town was shaped by its involvement in producing and selling linen. This activity helped it to develop and enabled the construction of several buildings which are now listed or registered as Historic Monuments. They include the Church of St. Maturinus, with its exceptional 16th-century stained glass windows, the presbytery, and many beautiful mansions that belonged to rich traders, like the old Veillet-Dufrêche mansion and the Kerjégu mansion, which is now the town hall.
Notable historic monuments include two 16th and 17th-century houses on Rue du Docteur Sagory, the Clézieux mansion, the Mognet tower and the Faubourg Saint-Jean door.
Moncontour is a county town of the Cotes-d'Armor of approximately 950 inhabitants. The city has a craft, commercial and tourist vocation. It is among the small towns of character of Brittany and, since March 2010, among the most beautiful villages of France. It is located 80 kilometers from Rennes, 20 kilometers from the sea and 20 kilometers from Saint-Brieuc.
The city, built on a rocky spur of a height of more than 80 meters, had in medieval times a situation almost impregnable. The fortress which was built there defended the Duchy of Penthievre. From the seventeenth century, the great bourgeois mansions that can be admired were built inside the ramparts by the rich merchants of linen cloth. The outer suburbs developed at the foot of the walls.
