IS THIS IS GREATEST CASTLE IN THE WORLD?

I kind of think it might be

It was thrashing rain from a steel sky above Paris yesterday evening. But this morning, the clouds cleared. Once we had followed the Seine downriver for an hour into Normandy, the landscape was bathed in butter yellow. Which meant all was good with the world when we arrived here…

Chateau Gaillard is translated variously as the Strong Castle, Cheeky Castle or Saucy Castle. Call it whatever you will: for my money there aren’t many finer fortresses anywhere in the world. It was built at huge expense and in a great hurry by Richard the Lionheart in the 1190s, as a strategic defensive node between French Paris and Anglo-Norman Rouen. Unbreakable, they said. Untakeable.

Well, that proved a hostage to fortune. Richard died in 1199 and in 1203-4 Chateau Gaillard was seized from his successor, John. The French king who did the seizing was Philip II Augustus. He had been at Acre during the Third Crusade, which was among the most extraordinary sieges of the whole twelfth century. So he knew what siegecraft was all about. John, by contrast, did not. And once he lost Chateau Gaillard, the rest of Normandy quickly followed. Not until the reign of Henry V in the fifteenth century was it regained by the English, and then only for eleven years.

Next time you’re passing through Normandy I highly recommend a visit. You might also like to stop at Rouen, where in the cathedral you can find a tomb holding Richard’s heart, embalmed and sealed in stone beneath a rather elegant effigy.

I’ll post another few pictures later in the trip. Until then, enjoy your weekend.

Dan