Overview
Decidedly more compact and austere than the nearby castle of Saint-Pierre, the castle of Sarriod de la Tour occupies a small area of plain a few steps from the waters of the Dora Baltea river, about 10 kilometres away from Aosta.
The aristocratic Aosta Valley family of the Sarriods ordered the construction of this complex in the Middle Ages, with a decidedly defensive character. The massive central body of the castle (known by the French term donjon), as well as the chapel and the city walls, date back to a period between the 10th and 12th centuries. In the following centuries, the Sarriod descendants added and extensively modified the appearance of the manor: open to the public since the 1970s, the castle is today one of the oldest examples of a medieval fortress in the Aosta Valley.
