Cantal

Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes

Commanderie de Celles

Neither château nor convent, but a farm run by warrior monks: the Commanderie de Celles was given to the Knights Templar in 1213 by Dalmas de Celles, then held by the Knights of Malta until the Revolution. Set 880 meters (2,890 feet) up in the Cantal, around an 11th-century Romanesque church, it…

Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes

Château du Sailhant

On a triangular basalt spur about twenty meters high, the Château du Sailhant watches over the upper Auvergne. A 13th-century fortress, it stands not far from the Sailhant waterfall, a source of legends.

Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes

Château de Messilhac

A Renaissance facade dated 1531, carved with a finesse rare in the Cantal, and upper floors left unfinished since the 16th century: Messilhac still shows the grand plan of Jean de Montamat, who set out to turn two medieval keeps into a house for pleasure. In the same family from the 13th century…

Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes

Château de Pesteils

Never sold, only handed down through marriage from one family to the next, Pesteils left its family just once, during the French Revolution. Once the fortress of Polminhac, this mountain château in the Cantal, in the heart of Auvergne, watches over the Cère valley from a 40-meter keep with…

Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes

Château de la Vigne

France has only three studioli, the painted study rooms where a Renaissance lord withdrew to read and think: one at Blois, one at Le Lude, and one at La Vigne. Built in the 15th century by the Scorailles family on an old vineyard facing the Cantal mountains, this small stone-roofed fortress opened…