Château de Méry, Méry-sur-Oise, France

Francois Mathieu Mole (1705-1793), Chairman of the Parliament of Paris, did redesign the Renaissance castle and replant the park, it's said that it was on the advice of the naturalist Georges-Louis Buffon (1707-1788). Looted during the Revolution, the gardens were redesigned in 1846 by Louis Varé Sulpice (1808-1883). Now owned by the town, the castle park, covering an area of twenty-seven hectares, offers the public its majestic spaces deployed around large ornamental ponds. Recently renovated, the botanical garden experiment, created by landscape architect Pascal Cribier in 1999 around the water cycle, is open to the public.

User Reviews

Dirk Plaas (20 months ago)
Just wonderfull..

Xenia RK (2 years ago)
Beautiful! ...and a perfect blend of preserving the old while non invasively bringing in the modern comfort and convenience. Great food, drinks and games to keep entertained when it gets too dark to enjoy the lovely gardens.

Parikshit Kohli (3 years ago)
Great food and wine with lots of history and serene surroundings...a place to unwind and relax

Claire Vickers (3 years ago)
Fantastic hotel with fantastic staff

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Roman Walls of Lugo

Roman Walls of Lugo are an exceptional architectural, archaeological and constructive legacy of Roman engineering, dating from the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. The Walls are built of internal and external stone facings of slate with some granite, with a core filling of a conglomerate of slate slabs and worked stone pieces from Roman buildings, interlocked with lime mortar.

Their total length of 2117 m in the shape of an oblong rectangle occupies an area of 1.68 ha. Their height varies between 8 and 10 m, with a width of 4.2 m, reaching 7 m in some specific points. The walls still contain 85 external towers, 10 gates (five of which are original and five that were opened in modern times), four staircases and two ramps providing access to the walkway along the top of the walls, one of which is internal and the other external. Each tower contained access stairs leading from the intervallum to the wall walk of town wall, of which a total of 21 have been discovered to date.

The defences of Lugo are the most complete and best preserved example of Roman military architecture in the Western Roman Empire.

Despite the renovation work carried out, the walls conserve their original layout and the construction features associated with their defensive purpose, with walls, battlements, towers, fortifications, both modern and original gates and stairways, and a moat.

Since they were built, the walls have defined the layout and growth of the city, which was declared a Historical-Artistic Ensemble in 1973, forming a part of it and becoming an emblematic structure that can be freely accessed to walk along. The local inhabitants and visitors alike have used them as an area for enjoyment and as a part of urban life for centuries.

The fortifications were added to UNESCO"s World Heritage List in late 2000 and are a popular tourist attraction.

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