Taffy chews and jetty views

On a recent Saturday, I took my 10-year-old daughter, Julia, and her friend Isidora for a stroll along Bearskin Neck, the little lane crowded with galleries and shops selling tourist-friendly tchotchkes. (A chew toy shaped like a lobster, anyone?)

We found parking on the street a few blocks away and then wandered into town, pausing briefly at Motif # 1, the much-photographed fishing shack on Bradley Wharf.

Our next stop was Tuck’s Candy, which has been the scourge of dentists everywhere since 1929. I don’t eat sweets, but the shop’s homemade caramel nut patties, tipped mints, and old-fashioned fudge are tantalizingly displayed in glass cases, making them irresistible even to geezers like me. The girls picked out a dozen or so pieces of taffy, and we headed out.

While I ducked in and out of a few of the tiny stores lining the alley, Julia and Isidora paid a visit to the Bearskin Neck Country Store, which seemingly stocks something for everyone, from retro lunchboxes and incense to candles and cookie cutters. Julia wondered about the origin of “Bearskin Neck,’’ and I promised to Google it when we got home. (Near as I can tell, a wayward bear drowned and washed ashore here long ago.)

All the aimless walking made us hungry, so we stopped into Top Dog of Rockport, a hole-in-wall lunch joint that sells fresh-off-the-boat fried clams, a tasty lobster roll, and specialty dogs. We gorged on fried clam strips - can you say food coma? - before staggering to the jetty at the end of Bearskin Neck to soak up some rays.

Mark Shanahan can be reached at shanahan@globe.com.