Château de Chillon

Description

"Château de Chillon", a medieval island fortress on Lake Geneva's strategic limestone rock near #Veytaux 🇨🇭, guards the vital passage between the Vaud Riviera and Rhône Valley, controlling routes to Italy and collecting tolls. An 11th-century square donjon marked its start, built to secure the road from Burgundy to the Great Saint Bernard Pass. By the mid-12th century, it became a favored summer residence for the Counts of Savoy, who expanded it notably in 1248 and 1266-67 under Peter II, adding elegant windows. The Savoyards lived luxuriously there with a lake fleet while also using it as a prison, most famously detaining François de Bonivard for six years starting in 1530. Bern captured it in 1536, freeing prisoners and making it a bailiff's seat until Vaud's 1798 uprising shifted its role briefly to a munitions depot.