Pays de la Loire · Maine-et-Loire, France

Château d'Angers

Seventeen colossal striped towers of dark schist banded with white limestone — the fortress Blanche of Castile raised against Brittany in the 1230s. Inside its half-kilometre of walls hangs the Apocalypse Tapestry, the largest surviving medieval tapestry cycle in the world.

At a glance

Built: 1230s (fortress); interior lodgings 14th–15th c.
Style: 13th-century royal fortress
Commissioned by: Louis IX and Blanche of Castile
Signature feature: 17 banded towers along nearly 500 m of curtain wall
The treasure: The Apocalypse Tapestry (c. 1375–1382), roughly 100 m of it surviving
Commissioned: During the minority of Louis IX by his mother Blanche of Castile
Ownership: French state (Centre des monuments nationaux)
Visiting: Open to visitors year-round