June 10 - Another day, another tour. This time we were bound for the ancient castle of Chillon.
A THOUSAND YEARS AND COUNTING
No one is sure when the castle was first built. Its site has been occupied since the Bronze Age, but most historians date the oldest parts of the chateau to about a thousand years ago and credit Pierre II of Savoy with building the present structure in the 13th Century. Its infamous dungeons were literally carved from the rock that supports the castle foundations. The visible portions of the castle include some two dozen buildings around three courtyards, all jammed together in a classically crowded medieval style.
For the last 200 years, the chateau has been owned by the Canton of Vaud, and it has been a tourist attraction since it was visited (and popularized) by 19th Century poets and authors such as Byron, Shelley, Victor Hugo, Hans Christian Andersen, Flaubert, Mark Twain, and Charles Dickens.
-from europeforvisitors.com
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