Montaigne's Tower and the Villa of Montcaret
Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France
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225
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+100 France
= 325 total
1 day
Montaigne's Tower and the Villa of Montcaret
225 + 100 XP
In 1571 Michel de Montaigne withdrew to the round tower of his château, and in its library, whose décor is unchanged, he wrote his Essays until his death in 1592; a Latin inscription on the wall records his retirement. The château burned in 1885 and was rebuilt, but the tower was spared, and both can be visited. Three and a half kilometres away, the Gallo-Roman villa of Montcaret keeps mosaics from the reception rooms and private baths of a 4th- and 5th-century aristocratic house, with a museum open all year.
Required Activities
1
of 5
Climb the tower past the chapel on the first floor and the bedroom on the second to the library on the third, where Montaigne says he spent most of the days of his life, and read the Greek and Latin sentences he had cut into the ceiling joists above your head
2
of 5
Find the Latin inscription on the library wall and work out the date it gives: the eve of the calends of March 1571, his own thirty-eighth birthday, the day he walked out on the Parlement and public office to come and rest, as it puts it, on the breast of the learned virgins
3
of 5
Stand in the square courtyard inside the ramparts and sort the house into its parts: the round library tower, the only 16th-century fabric left, against the neo-Renaissance house rebuilt after the fire of January 1885, with the park laid out on lines Montaigne drew himself
4
of 5
At Montcaret, lean over the pool of the private baths and count the sixteen panels of its mosaic floor — thirteen still legible, with fish, cuttlefish and shells set out mostly in pairs — then find the step built against the east wall to sit on and the single bath beside it, floored in white marble
5
of 5
In the cruciform room, with its two round apses and one square, find where medieval graves were cut straight through the geometric mosaic, then look for the shields and Solomon's knots laid on a white ground at the entrance to the baths — and notice that the village church still sits in the middle of the Roman house
Climb the tower past the chapel on the first floor and the bedroom on the second to the library on the third, where Montaigne says he spent most of the days of his life, and read the Greek and Latin sentences he had cut into the ceiling joists above your head
Find the Latin inscription on the library wall and work out the date it gives: the eve of the calends of March 1571, his own thirty-eighth birthday, the day he walked out on the Parlement and public office to come and rest, as it puts it, on the breast of the learned virgins
Stand in the square courtyard inside the ramparts and sort the house into its parts: the round library tower, the only 16th-century fabric left, against the neo-Renaissance house rebuilt after the fire of January 1885, with the park laid out on lines Montaigne drew himself
At Montcaret, lean over the pool of the private baths and count the sixteen panels of its mosaic floor — thirteen still legible, with fish, cuttlefish and shells set out mostly in pairs — then find the step built against the east wall to sit on and the single bath beside it, floored in white marble
In the cruciform room, with its two round apses and one square, find where medieval graves were cut straight through the geometric mosaic, then look for the shields and Solomon's knots laid on a white ground at the entrance to the baths — and notice that the village church still sits in the middle of the Roman house
Before you go
The château of Montaigne is privately owned but open, and only the library tower survived the 1885 fire; a digital reconstruction of the library has also been online since 2015, made by the Archéovision laboratory at Bordeaux-Montaigne. The remains and museum at Montcaret are open all year; the site runs over several terraces, is cut in two by the lane to the church, and the mosaics sit under protective roofs.
Montaigne's tower is open all year bar 25 December and 1 January, but only on a guided tour — « le château est uniquement ouvert en visites guidées » — so book before you drive out rather than hoping to climb it on arrival, and from October to April it closes at 5.30pm. Tour departures are usually around 10.30am and 3pm for the tower and 11.30am and 4pm for the 19th-century house, subject to availability; the reservation line is 05 53 58 63 93. The villa of Montcaret, 3.5 km away, is open all year and sits on terraces split by the lane to the church.
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Challenge Location
XP Breakdown
Challenge XP
225 XP
France country bonus
+100 XP
Potential total
325 XP
Country bonus earned on completion of your first challenge in France.
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