Today was supposed to be a travel day, with us moving to an aire in a little village close to Mont St. Michel ready for Team Basil’s assault on the island tomorrow. However, when idly scanning the app I use for aires I noticed an Aire in a town with an impressive looking castle, called Fougères. There seemed to be some uncertainty as to whether the overnight price was €25 (unacceptably high) or €6.50 (reasonable). Fougères was in any event on our route so we could scout the Aire and then make a decision.

As it turned out the Aire was €6.50 so we decided to stay. The castle doesn’t allow dogs so I went first.

Fougères castle claims to be the largest in Europe, but since castles of this sort only really occur in Europe it might be reasonable to claim Fougères is the largest in the world.

I started by walking round the walls on the outside which gave me an idea of its scale, which was enormous. When you enter it really like all the other castles of this age in Europe, except it is extremely large. Some of the oldest parts date from the 13th Century. The previously wooden castle had to be rebuilt after England’s Henry II destroyed it.

There have clearly been later additions and considerable restoration, in particular making large sections of the walls safe for the public to access.

One novel feature of this castle is that the local river Nançon is diverted not just for the castles moat, but it also cascades though one side and out the other driving four water wheels.

While I was castling Sarah had taken Skye for a walk around a local lake and she had managed to capture a better photograph of the castle than I had. Apparently the lake had a hill to one side from which she was able to get an excellent overall view of the castle.