Château de Mauvezin, Mauvezin, France

Château de Mauvezin, occupied since protohistory, was transformed into a castrum in the Middle Ages and later into a castle. The castle was built by Gaston Fébus (also Phoebus) around 1380. Following the merging of Bigorre into the Kingdom of France in 1607, it fell into disuse and was dismantled piece by piece, its stones being used for other buildings.

Today the castle is being restored and houses a historical and folk museum of Bearn and Bigorre.

User Reviews

you who (3 years ago)
Great spot for a picnic with great views and fresh air, there's even a few goats hanging around to keep the children amused.

Brian Skellie (3 years ago)
Wow! What a treasure of history well demonstrated by the guide in period costume! We enjoyed the medieval animations, music and spectacle enthusiastically. The picnic area has breathtaking mountain and valley views. Fun in family!

Boris Modylevsky (3 years ago)
Chateaux de Mavezin is a well preserved castle with a properly organized exhibition that shows medieval life.

Saara Sälpäkivi (3 years ago)
Happened upon this great castle by accident while on a roadtrip. It was well worth the visit since it was beautifully restored and the views were fantastic.

Musa Mailula (4 years ago)
It was an amazing tour of the castle from the medivial period. The castle and the historical ornaments and weapons are well preserved. Parking is available and it's free. The town is in a crime free zone, so no worries about being mugged. There's a souvenir shop inside the castle and the lady that works inside the shops speaks both French and English. The place is not full, you get to take your time observing the displays.

Featured Historic Landmarks, Sites & Buildings

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Historic Site of the week

Seville Cathedral

Seville's cathedral, Santa Maria de la Sede, is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world, and is recognised as UNESCO World Heritage. After its completion in the early 16th century, Seville Cathedral supplanted Hagia Sophia as the largest cathedral in the world, a title the Byzantine church had held for nearly a thousand years.

History

The basilica occupies the site of the great Aljama mosque, built in the late 12th century by the Almohads, the ruling Moorish dynasty, of which the only remaining parts are the Patio de Naranjas, the Puerta del Perdon (on Calle Alemanes, on the north side), and the Giralda (formerly the minaret, now the belltower).

Shortly after Seville's conquest by Ferdinand III, the mosque was converted into the city's cathedral. Its orientation was changed and its spaces partitioned and adorned to suit Christian worship practices. The internal space was gradually divided into chapels by constructing walls in the bays along the northern and southern walls. Almost the entire eastern half of the cathedral was occupied by the royal chapel that would hold the bodies of Ferdinand, his wife and Alfonso the Wise.

In 1401, city leaders decided to build a new cathedral to replace the grand mosque that served as the cathedral until then. Construction continued until 1506. The clergy of the parish offered half their stipends to pay for architects, artists, stained glass artisans, masons, carvers, craftsman and labourers and other expenses. Five years after construction ended, in 1511, the crossing lantern, or cimborrio, collapsed and work on the cathedral recommenced. The crossing again collapsed in 1888 due an earthquake, and work on the dome continued until at least 1903.

Architecture

The interior has the longest nave of any cathedral in Spain. The central nave rises to a height of 42 metres. In the main body of the cathedral, the most noticeable features are the great boxlike choir loft, which fills the central portion of the nave, and the vast Gothic retablo of carved scenes from the life of Christ. This altarpiece was the lifetime work of a single craftsman, Pierre Dancart.

The Capilla Mayor (Great Chapel), dominated by a vast Gothic retablo (altarpiece) comprised of 45 carved scenes from the life of Christ, as well as Santa Maria de la Sede, the cathedral's patron saint. The lifetime's work of a single craftsman, Pierre Dancart, this is the ultimate masterpiece of the cathedral - the largest and richest altarpiece in the world and one of the finest examples of Gothic woodcarving anywhere.

The Giralda is the bell tower of the Cathedral of Seville. Its height is 105 m. The Giralda is the former minaret of the mosque that stood on the site under Muslim rule, and was built to resemble the minaret of the Koutoubia Mosque in Marrakech, Morocco. It was converted into a bell tower for the cathedral after the Reconquista, although the topmost section dates from the Renaissance.

The tomb of Christopher Columbus is one of the main attractions of the cathedral for visitors, housing the remains of the great explorer who died in poverty in Valladolid. The tomb itself is more recent, from the 1892, with four bearers presenting the kingdoms of Castile, Leon, Aragon and Navarra.

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Château de Mauvezin

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