While in France on vacation last year we stumbled across the beautiful town of Domfront in the Orne department, a little by chance. We were quite taken with the town and had a nice wander around.
One of the highlights was the old castle (chateau) that sat on a high point looking over the lands around. As can be seen above, it was fairly sizeable and probably better described as a fortress as the walls are quite considerable.
We were able to just wander in freely and have a look around. It is completely ruined, but considering its at least 1000 years old, I'd say it aint doing that bad !
The walls are integrated into the town (or maybe it was the other way round originally), and these days it is well kept with flowers and the like that made it look really lovely and quaint.
The pic above shows the base of one of the corner towers, that would have looked out over one of the approach routes to the castle. You can easily see the thickness of the walls there - at around something like 6 to 8 foot thick.
The castle does sit on the high ground (as to be expected young Anakin), giving it considerable vantage points over a large part of the lands around.
The pic above shows the view over the edge, and you can see clearly over the town below and a considerable distance into the lands beyond.
The wiki page for the chateau provides some limited historic events with it changing hands a number of times particularly between the French and the English from 1000 to 1400 - so its seen some action in its time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Domfront
It really was a joy to wander around the grounds and explore this lovely ruin. I just loved how the town has now preserved it, and made it this beautiful place to visit, as an extension to the medieval town centre.
The pic above, looking over the side shows the nested walls/defences, which would have made this a pretty daunting castle to assault.
The main keep in the centre was fairly tall in its prime. It must have made for quite an imposing construction, as it would have been visible for a fair distance sitting atop the hill.
It really was lovely to explore, and we were so impressed with the town of Domfront in general, as it has an amazing medieval town centre, an incredible modern concrete church and then this lovely ruin. We are so glad we stopped to explore, purely by chance, because we came across it while travelling to our accommodation for the week.
I'd absolutely recommend stopping in to see both the castle and the town - they were great !
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Domfront
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Nice find @hoosie! I can imagine when it was not in ruins, it would be fun to go around the castle with lots of walls and stairs. Maybe easy to get lost 😅
Thanks - it was quite a cool castle, and yes it looked like it had lots of passageways and the like over the side within the defence walls and towers.
The more I see posts like this the more I start to realize that France has so much to offer once you get outside the big cities. Some of the old world war II sites just look amazing. This place as well. Dang, 1000 years. That's hard to even wrap your head around.
France is lovely. I've been many times, adn all over, and have never been disappointed. There really is something to see wherever you go. It also has some impressive history with fantastic things to see dating all the way back to the Roman times and beyond.
You represent it very well even though I know you aren't from there!