Chillon Castle – Château de Chillon

If you’re travelling to Lake Geneva in Europe, don’t miss a trip to Chillon Castle, the Château de Chillon. Located just outside Montreux, this stunning medieval fortress has an idyllic setting, a shadowy past and a dungeon that has inspired scores of poets and painters. Today, Chillon Castle is one of the most popular attractions in Switzerland. Read on for my experience and some fascinating history, or scroll down for all the how to’s. 

A trip to Chillon Castle in Switzerland

Woe betide a solo traveller who gets stuck behind a tour group of teenagers while trying to fight her way down the steps to a castle dungeon. That was my fate at Chillon Castle – the famous Château de Chillon immortalized by Lord Byron in the poem, The Prisoner of Chillon.

Outside, Lake Geneva was a silvery blue. Flowers were blooming all along the promenade from Montreux to Veytaux, but I couldn’t wait to sink into the shadows. This was my chance to visit one of the most written-about dungeons of all time. The Chateau de Chillon, 4 km (2.5 miles) southeast of Montreux and 40 km (25 miles) from Lausanne, is the most visited historic sight in Switzerland, a dream of a castle that rises up abruptly from Lake Geneva, or Lac Leman.

I was visiting on a day trip from Evian-les-Bains, but it’s even easier to visit from Geneva or Lausanne.

A scenic walk from Montreux

The dungeon of Chillon

Ahead of me the teenagers were giggling, sniggering, taking selfies and generally doing what teenagers do. I tried to twist my way through, but they blocked the doorways as we shuffled through a storage room and into the prison, a cavernous room where François Bonivard, the original prisoner of Chillon, had been chained to a pillar. Locked up in the gloom, he was imprisoned in the Chillon Castle dungeon for four (or six, depending on who you listen to) torturous years beginning in 1530.

I only lived, I only drew

The accursed breath of dungeon-dew

                                     The Prisoner of Chillon by Lord Byron, 1816

The dungeon

A popular tourist attraction in Montreux

Scooting around the tour group I made my way to the far end of the room, wondering if any of the teenagers even cared that this was the dungeon where Bonivard, a pastor from Geneva, was shackled to a three-foot chain. Unable to see out the windows, he was convinced his prison lay beneath lake level and could only imagine the sunshine outside.

Bonivard’s crime? Supporting the Reformation and speaking out against the corruption of the ‘Old Faith.’

Byron was here

Byron’s signature

“Here you can see Byron’s signature,” the tour guide for the teenagers raised her voice above the chatter. “He carved it into the pillar he believed Bonivard was chained to.”

A burst of youthful laughter drowned her out. I couldn’t hear if Byron had gotten the correct pillar or not. (He hadn’t.) But did it matter? In a strange twist of celebrity, Byron’s signature and his romantic account of the prisoner of Chillon have eclipsed, or at least equalled, the suffering of Bonivard himself.

Exploring the cellar of Chillon Castle

The teenagers cleared out, leaving only a few couples and solo tourists, and I was free to explore the room. Stout pillars rose up from the stone floor like petrified trees. Slabs of rough rock slashed down into the dungeon’s stone foundations. On the wall nearest the entrance, a mysterious crucifixion scene from the 15th century has been drawn in charcoal.

No one knows who drew it. Hopefully it gave the prisoners solace as they lay here in chains.

Crucifixion scene

Artistic inspiration

Reluctant to leave, I wedged myself onto a rock ledge. I wanted to soak up the atmosphere, to understand why Montreaux’s Chillon Castle has been such a powerful draw for so many artists. Considered one of the best places to visit in Switzerland, the chateau has a long list of literary admirers: Lord Byron, Percy Shelly, Victor Hugo, Mark Twain, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Charles Dickens. It’s also inspired painters such as Delacroix and Courbet.

Not the most comfortable place to sit

An authentic attraction on Lake Geneva

The castle is charming to be sure. Rising up from a rocky outcrop on Lake Geneva, connected to land only by a wooden bridge, Chillon’s towers and turrets fuel our romantic notion of what a medieval castle should look like. In an age of replicas and theme parks, this popular Swiss attraction has an unrivalled authenticity.

Castle with a view

Chateau de Chillon history

While the first written records of Chillon Castle date back to 1150, excavations show that the site has been inhabited since the Bronze Age. Its current form was built by Pierre II of Savoy in the 13th century. Strategically situated on an important trade route from England and France to Rome, it was constructed as a fortress, and became the summer home for the ruling Savoy family.

There are three main eras in Chillon’s history:

• The Savoy Period from the 12th century to 1536
• The Bernese Period from 1536 to 1798
• The Vaudois Period from 1798 to today

The castle has never been destroyed but it has been conquered. When the Bernese invaded in 1536, Chillon Castle was conquered in just two days – an attack that resulted in Bonivard, the Prisoner of Chillon, finally gaining his freedom.

How long could you stay here?

The prisoner of Chillon

“The cellar is lower than the lake?” a tall young man asked to his friends in surprise after skimming over one of the info boards that described Bonivard’s stay.

“It’s not. Bonivard was mistaken,” I piped up from my stone perch. The man looked startled and I realized that with my outfit of wall-matching grey and beige I’d been nearly invisible, a ghostly prisoner come to life. “His chain wasn’t long enough to let him see out the high windows so he only imagined he was below ground,” I explained.

A view out of reach

The dark history of Chillon

The man didn’t seem to appreciate my helpful tips. Perhaps he wasn’t over his fright. He and his friends walked off with the briefest of nods, and for a blissful moment I was alone in the dungeon. The silence was heavy. It might have been my imagination but the presence of despair, hope and hopelessness seemed as thick as the three-foot walls.

Painting of Bonivard by Joseph Hurnung

Other prisoners of Chillon

The Jews of Villeneuve

Bonivard and his fellow inmates (many of whom didn’t survive) weren’t the dungeon’s only prisoners. During a devastating plague in 1348, Jewish townsfolk from nearby Villeneuve were imprisoned and tortured here. They were blamed for causing the Black Death by poisoning the wells and food in order to destroy Christianity. Their captivity is a horror that doesn’t bear thinking about, except we do need to think about it, to acknowledge that this kind of ignorance and cruelty can occur.

The witches

Today we think of Switzerland as a peaceful country but back in the 16th and early 17th centuries the Canton of Vaud – the region of Western Switzerland that the Chateau de Chillon is located in – was a hotbed for witch hunting. More than 2,000 deaths can be attributed to the killing of witches and the fortress was no exception. In 1613, a total of 27 convicted ‘witches’ were burned in one of the castle’s courtyards.

One of three courtyards in Chillon

A romantic attraction

Unlike Chillon’s many prisoners, I had the freedom to shake off the chill of the dungeon and leave the cellar behind. As I emerged into the sunlight of a courtyard I wondered if it was the castle’s grim history that had inspired Lord Byron and so many others? Or was it Chillon’s medieval beauty, highlighted against the stunning backdrop of Lake Geneva and the Alps, that captured their imagination?

Maybe it was both, the grim and the glorious wrestling in some sort of irresistible tangle. Whatever the reason, the Castle of Chillon continues to cast its spell today.