Salses-le-Château · Pyrénées-Orientales
Fortress of Salses
French name: Forteresse de Salses
1st Sunday, low seasonSpecial days onlyFree under 26
Free admission
- 1st Sunday, low seasonFree on the first Sunday of every month, from November to March
- Free under 26Free every day for under-26 EU residents
- Special days onlyFree during the European Heritage Days
Address
Avenue du Château Fort, 66600 Salses-le-Château
Fortress built between 1497 and 1503 by the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile to seal the passage between Languedoc and Roussillon on the frontier of the kingdom of France. Semi-buried, with walls 6 to 10 metres thick and four corner towers, it marks the transition from medieval military architecture to flat-trajectory artillery fire; captured by French troops in 1639, it lost its strategic role after the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees.