Well, a confession, our visit to Beaucaire was actually a mistake as we were meant to be seeing Tarascon, on the other side of the river. We never got there as Beaucaire was such a pretty town and amazing castle that the visit took half a day.
Visiting Beaucaire Castle
The castle is set on a bluff overlooking the town and river. It is surrounded by parkland and is actually owned by the local community so entry is free. There is a museum in the grounds and you can walk along the walls to enjoy the views. Originally one of the largest castles in France all that is left is the citadel now and that is heavily modernised (high medieval) rather than being the twelfth century fortress that had a prominent role in the Albigensian Crusade.
My Experience
We parked on one of the side roads near the castle and walked up the steps through the park. The castle remains, despite being slighted by Richelieu, are still impressive today. They occupy a large site and obviously the views were excellent. There weren’t many information boards or explanations but the walls and towers spoke for themselves and the setting helped massively as Beaucaire town is just as pretty as the castle and incredibly photogenic to visit.
Beaucaire Castle Photo Gallery
History
The Castle of Beaucaire was built over the site of the Roman Ugernum and was later the Merovingian capital of Pagus Argenteus – The Land of Silver. It overlooks the River Rhône, the traditional border with Provence, with Tarascon lying on the Provençal side.
It was here, in an eleventh century castle, that King Richard I of England gave his sister Jeanne of England in marriage to Raymond VI of Toulouse; and it was here, a year later, in July 1197 that Jeanne gave birth to Raymondet, the future Count Raymond VII of Toulouse.
During the Albigensian Crusades which started a decade later, Beaucaire fell to the French Catholic Crusaders. As elsewhere in the Midi, the inhabitants loathed their new masters. Even after Pope Innocent III purported to dispossess Raymond VI as Count of Toulouse and confirmed Simon de Montfort as his replacement at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1216, they would still wholeheartedly support their sovereign Count against the combined might of western Christendom.
First built in the 11th century, the castle here was demolished and replaced by a new one by Saint-Louis after the annexion of the Languedoc to the e Royal domain in 1229. One of the largest in France the castle here was slighted on Richelieu’s orders. It had been protected by a wall, the trace of which can still be followed. It includes a polygonal tower perched on a rocky spur, the façades dominating the sheer drop, and a round corner tower. inside the walls a staircase leads to a small Romanesque chapel with a sculpted tympanum, and then to the musée Auguste Jacquet. The museum has exhibits on the region’s archaeology (dating back more than 40,000 years) and popular arts and traditions.
References
There is a fabulous write up on the castle here, with an excellent description of the thirteenth century siege. The history above is a very much abridged version of that page.
This site here has a good overview of visiting the castle today.