Ille-et-Vilaine

Brittany

Château de Bonaban

The last and largest of the malouinières, the country houses built by the shipowners of Saint-Malo, Bonaban went up in 1777 for the Le Fer family on a rocky spur above the bay of Mont-Saint-Michel. A Carrara marble staircase and ceilings more than five meters (16 feet) high announced a fortune.…

Brittany

Château de La Bourbansais

A granite manor, listed gardens and a zoo where lemurs and giraffes live: La Bourbansais brings heritage and the protection of endangered species together on one estate in Brittany. Begun in 1583 by Jean du Breil and embellished in the 18th century by members of the Parliament of Brittany, the…

Brittany

Château de Montmuran

In the chapel of Montmuran, Bertrand du Guesclin was knighted in 1354, and twenty years later he became its lord by marrying its owner, Jeanne de Laval. Built on a feudal mound from 1170, this Breton fortress still has its 12th-century towers, a gatehouse with two drawbridges and rare medieval…

Brittany

Château de la Ballue

Yew spirals, a green theater, a maze and a Temple of Diana: La Ballue's garden was designed in the 1970s by the publisher Claude Arthaud and two architects, who conceived it as a work of art. It surrounds a château built around 1620 by Gilles Ruellan on the foundations of a fortress that once…