Château et chapelle troglodytique de La Roche-Guyon

La Roche-Guyon

Set against a chalk cliff above a loop of the Seine, La Roche-Guyon is the only troglodyte château in the Île-de-France: its oldest rooms are hollowed out of the rock, and an underground staircase of about a hundred steps climbs to the Romanesque keep built between 1180 and 1200. Local tradition makes the rock a sacred place long before the château: Pience, widow of the owner of a Gallo-Roman estate, is said to have met Saint Nicaise, the evangelist of the Vexin, there and to have had a sanctuary cut into the cliff to shelter the first Christians, of which the west nave of the present chapel would be the heir. This lineage belongs to foundation legend rather than to established archaeology, but it explains the crypt-like atmosphere that reigns in the excavated parts. The documented history is every bit as romantic: in 1419 the lady of the castle, Perrette de La Rivière, withstood six months of siege by the Earl of Warwick, refusing to swear allegiance to Henry V of England and accepting the loss of her possessions rather than betray the crown of France. She capitulated only on 8 July 1419, when the English set about undermining the château through its cellars. On 25 June 1793, the Terror ordered the keep to be cut down to prevent its use by counter-revolutionaries: what remains is a massive stump that still dominates the village. The estate, which passed to the La Rochefoucauld family in the Age of Enlightenment, received Turgot and Condorcet.

Wikipédia — Château de La Roche-Guyon ↗

Getting there : 1 rue de l'Audience, at the foot of the cliff, in the village of La Roche-Guyon (a loop of the Seine, French Vexin). By car via the D913 from Mantes-la-Jolie or Vétheuil; no railway station on the spot. Château open to visitors (generally every day from April to early November), climb to the keep by the underground staircase.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound