Photo : GO69 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Château de Saumur
The Château de Saumur overlooks the Loire, near its confluence with the Thouet, in Maine-et-Loire. Its construction began in the tenth century under Theobald the Trickster, Count of Blois. In 1026, Fulk Nerra, Count of Anjou, seized it and the Angevins kept it for nearly two centuries. After the defeat of John Lackland in 1203, Philip Augustus had a keep of oblong plan built there, and Saint Louis strengthened the stronghold in 1227.
In the fourteenth century, Louis I of Anjou transformed it into a palace-fortress by replacing the round towers with octagonal ones. In the sixteenth century, Italian-style fortifications were added, and the governor Philippe Duplessis-Mornay finished the bastioned enclosure around 1646. The castle has served as a royal residence, prison, military depot and powder magazine.
It now houses a museum devoted notably to decorative arts, ceramics and tapestries, as well as a collection of more than 7,200 objects related to the horse. It has been protected since 1964 and is part of the Loire Valley site inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage. The castle has seen restoration work: check the official website to find out what is visible.
