Description of the attraction
The first fortification on the site of the present Chillon Castle was built around the 9th century. His goal was to observe the road that runs from Avanches to Italy through the Grand-Saint-Bernard pass along Lake Geneva. Property of the bishop of Zion, who expanded it, then the counts of the dynasty of Savoy (from 1150), in the middle of the 13th century. Chillon acquired its present features.
The castle and its dungeons served several times as a state prison, the most famous prisoner of which is Bonivar. The rector of the Cathedral of St. Victor in Geneva, François de Bonivard, wanted to carry out the reformation in Geneva. His theses did not like the Duke of Savoy, who had views of the city and was an ardent defender of Catholicism. Bonivar was arrested and thrown into the dungeon of the castle that bears his name. For four years he remained chained to a column. On the stone, you can still see the traces of the steps of a prisoner freed by the Bernese in 1536. While passing through Chillon in 1816, making a pilgrimage to the homeland of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (born in Geneva), the English poet Byron glorified the prisoner Bonivard in the poem "The Prisoner of Chillon". This contributed to the fact that Chillon Castle became one of the most popular attractions in Switzerland.
The dungeons that served as an arsenal for the Bernese fleet in the 17th and 18th centuries, with beautiful pointed vaults, were carved right into the rock. In Bonivar's dungeon, on the third pillar, Byron carved his name.
The Great Hall with the Savoy coat of arms has a magnificent ceiling and an imposing 15th century fireplace. Oak columns, beautiful furniture and a collection of pewter dishes attract attention. In the old Party Hall, decorated with a wooden ceiling in the shape of an inverted underwater part of the ship, there is now a museum of weapons (a musket decorated with mother-of-pearl and bone, in the butt of which you can store gunpowder), armor, pewter, furniture. In the spacious Knight's or Armorial Hall, there are no walls - the coats of arms of the Bernese officials.
From the roof of the donjon, which can be reached by climbing a narrow staircase, there is a beautiful view of Montreux, the lake and the Alps.
