I visited the Citadel of Besacon in September 2026.  [The Frence has the c with a tail in the name, but I’ve ignored that here.  It’s pronounced “buh-zahn-sohn”]

You might ask what is a citadel and how does it differ from a castle.  You might ask google, but I’ve done it for you.   A citadel is like a fort, while a castle is like a massive fortified home.  

The difference between a citadel and a fort is location and purpose.  A citadel is integrated into a city.  The name itself has the same root as the word for city.  A fort has the purpose of housing a military garrison and controlling the surrounding territory.   A citadel does the same (that is, a citadel is a kind of fort), but it protects the town as well.  

It also protects the government from the town.  If the people start to rebel, the citadel has the guns to convince them that isn’t the best option (or at least, that’s the thought).  It turns out the Tower of London is a kind of citadel.  It was built partly to convince the citizens of London to stay in line and give a place of refuge for the royal family if there was trouble.

The Citadel of Besacon was built on the orders of Louis XIV, under the direction of Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, generally known just as Vauban.  He was a military engineer and sounds like an amazing person.

The location has been important since Iron age times.  It was held by a Celtic tribe, whose name for it evolved into the modern name of the city.  Julius Caesar described it at length in his book on the Gallic war.  It continued to be important through Medieval times.  

In world war 2, it was held by the Germans and used as a POW camp, to store supplies and to house soldiers.  After being recaptured by the allies, it was still used as a POW camp, but for Germans instead.  It must have been miserable for the people imprisoned there.  It is huge, but there were thousands in the prison.

Today, it houses a zoo and museums, as well as being a marvel to experience itself.

I got there by parking in a lot about a 20 minute walk away.  Speaking of parking, they tend to use a system in which a camera scans the license plate on the way in.  Then at the kiosk to pay, you enter the license number and give it your payment.  On the way out, it again scans the license plate, recognizes the payment & lifts the barrier.  It’s much easier than taking (& possibly losing) a paper ticket.  

The walk from the street was fairly steep, as you would expect, but they had stairs.  Happily, today there are handrails.  

 

There is still a bit of stuff from Roman times,   This was originally a pool in a Roman house.

 

This is the treadmill for the great well inside the citadel.

The well itself was 433 feet deep, from the top of the hill down to the water table below.  They blasted their way through solid limestone, setting hot fires to fracture the limestone, then throwing cold water on it.  They also blasted it away with black powder.  When they had a pile of stones, they hauled them to the top.  It took 3 years and an untold number of casualties.  By untold, I mean, they didn’t keep specific records, but it was probably quite a few.  

When they had it done, they built the arch to hold the winch and started hauling up water in buckets that held 120 liters, so about 300 pounds.  The winch was operated by one or two men walking inside it.

You can walk around the edge on the ramparts and get a wonderful view.  There are a few steps up to it.

You can look out over the river.

And back into the citadel.

It turns out that walking along a path that is maybe 2 feet wide with a sheer drop off to the river on one side and a multi-story drop to the ground on the other isn’t for everyone.  

There is an idea that doing things that scare you — and not suffering any damage — will cause you to not be so afraid of whatever it is.  I think that idea (desensitization, fwiw) works on a ramp.  First you look at a picture of a snake (if that’s the thing), then you go to the snake house and know there are snakes there.  Then you listen to someone talking in parseltongue — wait, that’s Harry Potter, never mind.

The ramparts were too much for me.  I was having images of falling over the edge or dropping my phone over the edge.  I went back to ground level.

They had a set of animal skulls in the zoo.  I’m assuming they are life sized.  The lion head is smaller than I expected, though it’s hard to tell from a photo.

They have a sign that said Kangaroos, but I went to where it pointed & didn’t see any.  I did see a peacock pheasant in a bird enclosure and some mice in the nocturnal display.  On the whole, if your goal is to see zoo animals, this might not be the best choice.

They do have a massive silver grasshopper though.

 

And a driftwood elephant.

 

There are a lot of arched passages.

 

And a flower (but not from Besacon)