Chillon Castle
Island fortress of the Counts of Savoy on Lake Geneva, near Montreux, open to visitors year round.
Chillon Castle occupies a rocky islet a few metres from the shore of Lake Geneva between Veytaux and Montreux, at the point where the old road towards the Great St Bernard pass is pinched between water and mountain. The rock was settled in the Bronze Age and a tower is documented in 1150, but the castle owes its present shape to the Counts of Savoy, who extended it through the thirteenth century, above all under Peter II. Bern captured it in 1536 and held it until 1798.
Visitors follow a marked route of roughly twenty-five stops through courtyards, storerooms, bedchambers, the chapel and the great halls with their painted timber ceilings, finishing at the keep. The vaulted underground chambers contain the pillar to which the Genevan prior Francois Bonivard was chained in the sixteenth century; Lord Byron's poem of 1816 made the prison famous and brought a stream of Romantic travellers. The castle is run by an independent foundation for the canton of Vaud and stages exhibitions and workshops.
Highlights
- Thirteenth-century Savoyard fortress built on a rock in Lake Geneva
- Vaulted underground prison made famous by Byron's poem of 1816
- Painted timber ceilings and wall paintings in the halls and chapel
- Self-guided route of about twenty-five stops through the whole castle
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