Sully-sur-Loire Castle (France)

Located in the Loiret in the Loire Valley, the Château de Sully-sur-Loire is in the Renaissance style. Built in the fourteenth century, it is one of the Loire Castles. It hosts nearly 55,000 visitors each year, making it the first castle and the fourth most visited website of the department. The castle is ideally located, close to a sublime bridge at the corner of the way of the Green Room, Avenue de Bethune and promenade moat.

Château de Sully-sur-Loire for astonishing features

First mentioned in 1102, the castle was to control a bridge over the Loire, it was destroyed in the XIV century. One of the peculiarities of the castle is that it has belonged to three families: the first lords of Sully, the family of the Trémouille and family Bethune.

In the early thirteenth century that Philippe Auguste built a great tower. However, the time of the castle do not like the castle we know today. Indeed, it is in 1396, that Gui IV of Trémouille launched the construction of the castle with the help of Raymond du Temple, at the time architect of the King and the Duke of Orleans.

Maximilien de Bethune, first Duke of the name, had built in the early seventeenth century, the castle park. During the Fronde of the princes, it is the Château de Sully-sur-Loire that the young Louis XIV took refuge, in March 1652.

Thereafter, the Castle of the Loire Valley is also where Voltaire fled when he left Paris.

During both world wars, the Château de Sully-sur-Loire is experiencing difficult times. First, a fire in 1918 and the bombing in June 1940 and in August 1944.

The castle belonged until 1962 to the family of the 1st Duke of Sully, the year in which the General Council of Loiret buys to restore it.

The Château de Sully-sur-Loire: an outstanding heritage

Composed of two distinct parts, the Château de Sully-sur-Loire consists of a tower and a small castle.

First, regarding the dungeon is a rectangular building is flanked by four circular towers and a door in two rounds. The interior mainly dates from the time of Maximilian de Bethune. On the first floor there is the great room with its wooden doors of the seventeenth century painting of the Castle of Rosny-sur-Seine and the iron door to access the "cabinet" of Sully. Note the marvelous structure under roof fourteenth century in broken cradle.

Then, the small castle, the latter closes the courtyard south of the dungeon. Consists of a building and two towers, interiors dating from the nineteenth century. The body lying between the small castle and the keep was built in the eighteenth century and then renovated after the fire of the First World War.

Regarding the park, it is surrounded by canals that Mr Bethune did arrange to put the site safe from floods of the Loire.

The Château de Sully-sur-Loire is open to the public since 1933. It is part of the Historic buildings since 1928. It welcomes in particular the annual Music Festival Sully and Loiret.