Photo : Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Château de Vitré
This castle is one of the most beautiful fortresses of Brittany. Fortified from the early eleventh century, it was besieged and taken in the twelfth century. Its owner, Guy XV de Laval, opened it without a fight to the French occupying troops in 1487. The Parliament of Brittany settled there during the great plague epidemics of 1564, 1582 and 1583. Its enclosure, triangular in plan, follows the layout of the castle rebuilt in the thirteenth century and offers a series of buildings from the late fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. The most remarkable parts are the Saint-Laurent tower (early fifteenth) that probably served as a keep, and above all the gatehouse, a fortified entrance between two towers and topped by an elegant lodging, whose structure, characterised by a large banded arch above the gate, is close to that of the château de Montmuran. The castle now houses the town hall and the museum, and allows a most interesting visit.
