Skip to main content

The Saracen Tower

Why is this place so important ?

The Saracen Tower played a major role in the site’s defence. Completing the castle on the southern side, it seems to be the ‘castle’s guard tower’.

Courtyards area

The Saracen Tower was built on a rocky outcrop. It completed the castle on the southern side and therefore protected the Porte de l’Auro access point. ‘Auro’ means the north wind—the terrible mistral—in Provençale.  This structure had an ingenious system of defence designed to mislead intruders who, believing that they had entered the castle, would be repelled beneath the walls of the fortress. The assailants would be misled by a series of imitation doors and uneven terrain.

Did you know?

Another tower, which still stands, protected the castle’s north-west corner: the Paravelle Tower. The tower kept watch over the Vallon de la Fontaine and the Val d’Enfer (the Valley of Hell), and, above all, the Vayède pass, whose high elevation made it an especially suitable place for mounting a siege.