Fougères castle

Today we visited the chateau-fort/castle. The day was a bit flat and dull but dry, so a good day to explore. We had a galette and crepe from a creperie near the castle - which was very average and not worth the money. The castle visit itself isn't expensive and has a free audio guide. September being out of peak season means that though there were plenty of people about it wasn't like a zoo.

The castle is very complete and quite big. It's one of the best preserved medieval castle is the world not just France. Built to keep the French out of Brittany, it was one of the key defensive points in the Duchy.

As I said yesterday the location is odd, it's overlooked on three sides by higher ground, which is a bit strange. However it's actually built on a natural bump in the centre of a wide basin, so when it was built the higher ground around it probably wasn't too much use to the enemy. The basin was used as a quarry to build the castle, and the plentiful water created a natural moat on two sides, extended to go all around.

Two of the extras show you how high the walls are when they start relative to the ground level at the foot of the castle. A third is one of the entrance points. The final extra is the carved elephant (there are two) on a church in town.

After France annexed Brittany, the castle wasn't important any more and while some stone was robbed out, it was mostly ignored until the town bought it as a tourist attraction. They've been maintaining it ever since and it's is in very good condition overall and does bring in tourists.

The town itself was once very rich and had a big luxury women's shoe industry. A few names remain but manufacturing has long been sent overseas. These days the town has suffered from a certain amount of post-industrial decline, but you can see in the grand architecture that it was once very rich. The surrounding urban sprawl is doing very well, as it's cheap and a good commute distance to Rennes - the regional capital to the south.

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