Thursday, June 07, 2012

Château de Franchimont

Another thing on my 101 List is "visit a castle." I'm not sure if I should count this because it's more the REMAINS of a castle!

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Sitting on the end of a small hill overlooking a small village in Belgium, Château de Franchimont (Franchimont Castle) is thought to be built in the 11th century. Over the centuries it was expanded several times but it wasn't until the 16th century that they built the outer wall and artillery tower. These days there's not too much left of the tower but the remaining bits are where the ticket office is and a small exhibit on how it grew over the years.

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This is part of the rather steep road leading up to the original entry to the castle.

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Once you walk through the arch you can see the courtyard and some of the remains of the castle.

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Back to the outside again. I loved the plant life on the walls!

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Here you can see one of the lovely views of the village below.

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If you do get the opportunity to go, visitors information can be found on the Château de Franchimont website (in French, but Google Translate does a passable job of translating the important bits). I highly recommend paying the extra €1.50 for the audiotour. It's interesting to wander around in the ruins but it's even more interesting if you know a little more about it!


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I'm linking this C is for Castle/Château post up to Mrs. Matlock's AlphabeThursday. Go have a gander over there are find out what other fun C's people wrote about!

Jenny Matlock

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