CARMEL -- Dog-friendly it may be, but Carmel is anything but a "who-let-the-dogs-out" canine circus. Sure, you'll see a noticeable number of people with dogs on the street, but most people have shopping bags, not leashes, in their hands.

No dogs are allowed, for example, in the Wine and Cheese Shop at Carmel Plaza, where Gary Bartram for more than 20 years has sized up customers and their tastes.

"People walk in the door and we let them taste cheese until they decide what they want to buy. After only two cheeses, I can get a taste for their palate," he says.

That's no small feat, considering the shop has more than 300 cheeses in stock.

Ditto the no-dog rule at fine restaurants such as Kurt's Carmel Chop House, and Grasing's, where diners can choose from among more than 700 wines to accompany entrees such as pomegranate-marinated rack of lamb or herb-crusted sea bass.

And while 17 Carmel lodgings are happy to accommodate pets, their numbers include only one of the town's four full-service hotels.

Shopping and eating are major pastimes in this walkable dollhouse of a village. There's eye candy everywhere you look, from a shop window holding artfully arranged glassware to the curvy thatched roof of a Hansel and Gretel-style cottage designed by early 20th century architect and developer Hugh Comstock.

To be here is to wish you could live here; it's that picture-perfect of a place. Old-fashioned, too.

"Carmel-by-the-Sea has its own ZIP code, but we don't have mail delivery because residents don't want street numbers," says Mayor Sue McCloud, a former CIA operative now in her fourth term, who speaks Japanese, Swedish and French.

Instead of numbers, houses in Carmel have names such as "White Sands" and "Xanadu." Business addresses are given by block, as in "it's on Dolores, between Seventh and Eighth." The city contracts with an independent firm to deliver mail to the elderly and infirm, but most residents still pay a daily visit to the post office.

And the quirkiness doesn't end there: "No architectural lights are permitted in yards, and there are no stoplights or fast-food outlets. Carmel Bakery sells Starbucks coffee, but that's it," McCloud says. "The idea is that it's a village in a forest, and residents want to keep it that way."

Nobody would wear high heels in a forest, right?

An archaic law, still on the books, forbids such unsafe hobbling on city streets. Visitors in the know can go to City Hall, fill out a form and get an official high-heels permit. It makes a memorable souvenir. (According to Stephanie Pearce, the city's administrative coordinator, 492 have been issued since the first one on Jan. 3, 1964.)

This is, of course, the town that elected Hollywood hero Clint Eastwood as its mayor in 1986. The tough guy's legacy includes the installation of much-needed public restrooms at several locations -- and of installing bulletproof material in the walls at City Hall, a quaint redwood building that once served as an Episcopal Church. It seems "Dirty Harry" was afraid some deranged fan might take a potshot.

In any case, the lead-lined dais is now the safest place in the village. "It's bulletproof," acknowledges the current mayor. "But the crowds were so big for Clint they had to move the meetings to the Women's Club, where there was no protection."

Carmel's demographics -- and real estate prices -- have changed since Eastwood's time in the civic limelight.

The artists who moved here after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake bought lots on which to pitch their tents and build their cottages for just $40 apiece. When McCloud arrived in Carmel with her family as a child, "we rented a three-bedroom, one-bath house with a one-car garage. The rent was $75 a month and we were such good tenants they reduced it to $65. We had it 15 years for $65 a month."

Now even the rare fixer-upper goes for $2 million or more. Many houses in the village are second homes that sit empty much of the year.

"There's a large retirement community, and people who are telecommuting. But probably half the homes are second homes. We have no schools anymore. Artists and professionals can't afford to live here," McCloud says.

Managing change is not easy in a community that hangs like a bulldog onto its traditions, she adds. Still, the mayor insists, Carmel is a model of urban planning. The village has retained its low-rise profile, pedestrian-friendly character and charming atmosphere through the years. More than 600 people live in the downtown commercial area, where second-floor apartments have been heavily promoted in recent years.

And there's lots of culture. Even a short list of art, music, theater and dance programs held in Carmel each year would make a big city green with envy. The Sunset Cultural Center, housed in what once was the local grammar school, is an acoustically brilliant, $35 million performance space that opened in 2003.

"It's a really wonderful example of public-private partnership," says the mayor, a musician who once played clarinet in the San Francisco Symphony.

As pretty as it is on the surface, there's more to Carmel than meets the untrained eye. Kay Prine, a spry 85, shares memories, history and favorite places on walking tours conducted for the Carmel Heritage Society. The tours take in hidden gardens and courtyards, local landmarks and stories about places such as the Pine Inn, which got its name after it was rolled down a hill from its original location on pine logs in the late 1800s.

As pretty, self-assured and affluent as Carmel is, its greatest assets are natural. From the fairly straight-and-level village center, the landscape slopes downward to embrace one of California's most gorgeous beaches, a mile-long, sugar-white strand abutting the famous Pebble Beach golf course.

On the evenings when the sky looks prime for a good sunset, tourists and locals alike take up position on the sandy slopes leading down to the water and bask in the golden glow of the place and the moment. Sometimes, there's even applause.

Bee travel editor Janet Fullwood can be reached at (916) 321-1148 or jfullwood@sacbee.com.