Set on the most picturesque curve of the Seine one can find, the ruins of Château Gaillard are a crumbling monument to the aesthetic sense and unbridled ambitions of England’s allegedly homosexual king, Richard the Lionheart. 
Richard was a notable example of early European integration: a French-speaking Norwegian king of England who married a Spanish princess in Cyprus on the way to a military adventure in the Middle East. He is suspected to be on more chummy terms with the princess’s brother though and, like some expats today, he preferred to live in France whilst running business in England, stating the horrible weather and food in his dominion as reasons of his choice.
A valiant knight and an insatiable adventurer, he commissioned the castle to assert his right for his continental possessions before the French King Philippe August. It took just one year and an extravagant expense to erect the fortifications. Upon seeing the finished castle, Richard is known to have exclaimed: “Quel gaillard tu es!” – “Aren’t you jolly pretty!” thus giving it its name.
Next year he was killed by a lance in the siege of a fortress and four years later Château Gaillard was successfully sacked by French forces. Just over one century later, Marguerite of Burgundy, Louis X’s adulterous wife, was first incarcerated here and then strangled to death with her own hair.
- Lille - The Nearest Bit Of France
- Mer-les-Bains - Bourgeois Seaside Resort Par Excellence
- Dieppe - Maps, Ivory And Scallops
- Fécamp - Liqueur, Seafood & Norman Vestiges
- The Limestone Arches Of Étretat
- Rouen - The Duck, The Pots & The Cathedral
- Richard the Lionheart's Château Gaillard
- Monet's Japanese Garden in Giverny
- Honfleur - A Picture-Perfect Port
- Mont St.Michel - The Marvel Abbey
- Côte Emeraude - Brittany's Emerald Coast
- St. Malo - The Granite Jewel of Brittany
- Dinard & St. Lunaire - Hangouts Of The Rich
- Jersey - The Bulwark Of Englishness
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