Photo : Daniel CULSAN / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Château d'Annecy
The Château d'Annecy overlooks the old town, in Haute-Savoie. A fortress may have existed as early as the eighth century, but the first certain mention dates from 10 October 1219, when the House of Geneva made it its main residence after losing the city of Geneva to its prince-bishop. A great fire destroyed it on 27 April 1340; Count Amadeus III of Geneva had it rebuilt identically. It then passed through several hands, notably those of the dukes of Savoy-Nemours.
The complex is arranged within a polygonal enclosure of about 55 by 125 metres. You can see the Queen's Tower, a twelfth-century square tower 38 metres high, the Vieux Logis of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries with its great hall, the Perrière tower begun in 1445 and the Nemours lodging, built in 1545. Long used as barracks, the castle was bought back by the town in 1953 and listed as a historic monument in 1959. It now houses a museum devoted to regional art and the Regional Observatory of Alpine Lakes.
