Built in the fifteenth century by Louis d'Orleans, dismantled in the seventeenth and recreated by Napoleon III, the castle of Pierrefonds is a brilliant interpretation of the Middle Ages by the architect Viollet-le-Duc, who concocts his most masterful. The castle has both comprehensive defensive system and stately home harboring imperial apartments decor steeped in medieval imagination, the whole constitutes a true initiation to the world of chivalry.

http://pierrefonds.monuments-nationaux.fr

Photo of the castle: Rémi Certhoux