Châtillon, formerly known as Châtillon-d’Azergues, is a commune in the Rhône département in eastern France, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Beaujolais, 40 minutes by car from Lyon.
The town was known under the name of Châtillon in 1793.
The main attraction of the city is Château de Châtillon-d’Azergues. The castle’s construction is dated to the 13th and 15th centuries. All that remains of the castle is the keep and a tower.
The 12th-13th century castle of Châtillon was mentioned for the first time in the agreement of 1173 between the count of Forez and the archbishop of Lyon, a treaty which definitively separated the counties of Forez and Lyonnais. Since the 11th-12th centuries, there has been a local seigneurial family which takes its name from the village, the Châtillon (not linked to Châtillon les Dombes): Amblard around 1100, Guillaume-Rainier in 1121, Dalmace in 1160 … In the 13th century , it is the Oingt family who owns Châtillon, at least since Guichard d’Oingt.
The site consists of a polygonal enceinte with several buildings from the 13th to 16th centuries. In the centre of the enceinte is the 13th century cylindrical keep. It is 30 m high and 9.5 m in diameter with walls 1.5 m thick. Only the ground floor was vaulted. During the 15th century, a hexagonal staircase towers was attached which asloserved the other buildings. The oldest part of the castle is a 12th-century rectangular building supported by very flat buttresses,connected to each other by blind arcades forming a decoration known as a frise lombarde (Lombardy frieze).
The castle is privately owned and closed to the public.
Right next to the castle, the Saint-Barthélémy chapel, known as Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, has several particularities: built in the 12th century on the site of an older building, it is in fact has two stacked chapels. The upper chapel has a corbelled apse. A Gothic portal was added in the 15th century and the whole was restored in the 19th century. The chapel was listed as a historic monument in 1862.
Shortest distances by car
From Paris: 4 hr 16 min (464 km) via A6
From Lyon: 34 min (29.0 km) via A6 and A89
From Marseille: 3 hr 36 min (336 km) via A7
From Toulouse: 4 hr 58 min (537 km) via A20 and A89
From Monaco: 5 hr 44 min (529 km) via A8 and A7
From Andorra: 7 hr 1 min (688 km) via A9 and A7
From Madrid: 11 hr 30 min (1,223 km) via A89
From Moscow: 30 hr (2,977 km) via E30/M1
From Belgrade: 14 hr 25 min (1,509 km) via E70 and A4
From Istanbul: 25 hr (2,453 km) via E70
From Bern: 3 hr 20 min (338 km) via A1
Main information
Area: 10 km2
Population: 2 115
Coordinates: 45°52′41″N 4°38′46″E
Language: French
Currency: Euro
Visa: Schengen
Time: Central European UTC +1
See here France travel guide
See here Spain travel guide
See here Pyrenees travel guide
See here Andorra travel guide
