Château d'Épinal

About

The castle of Epinal and the ruins of the old fortress dominate the town of Epinal and the Moselle valley at an altitude of 387 m. It was built by the bishop of Metz, Jacques de Lorraine, about the middle of the 13th century, then succeeding a first fortress of the year thousand which was with Fontenoy-le-Château and Remiremont the first fortresses of the Vosges of the south. Perched on a rocky ridge, it presents itself as a polygonal enclosure with a powerful residential dungeon and a large filtered tank.

The remains of the seigneurial house as well as other buildings (archal, captain's house, oven, chapel...) were discovered during the excavation of the castle during the 1980s. Enlarged and adapted to artillery by the Dukes of Lorraine at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the castle was destroyed by the troops of Louis XIV in 1670. This medieval fortified complex has been a historic monument since 1992.