Pontius Pilate never set foot here, but the name stuck. Legend has the Roman prefect stopping in this house on his way into exile at Vienne, in Gaul; the story gained credit from the discovery in 1846 of ancient coins and Roman medals among the ruins, reported by Édouard Aubert. In Roman times Nus in fact had only a mansio.
What to see
Of the rectangular fortified house, once four storeys high, three thick perimeter walls of bare stone survive along with the two hanging corner turrets, in excellent condition. The southern wall, the one with the gate, was pulled down between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to widen the road, then rebuilt and destroyed again in a car accident in the 1960s. On the west wall you can see the worked jamb of a cross window; inside, the masonry still shows where a large fireplace stood.
Visiting
A recent restoration added a glass and steel roof and a metal stair hidden by a wooden structure on the south side, where the wall is missing: you climb freely to the guard walkway and the two turrets. Inside there are panels about the town and its surroundings. The first written trace is the homage paid in 1337 by Alexandre and Jean de Nus; abandonment came with a fire towards the end of the sixteenth century, when the lords moved to the castle on the promontory: the family documents kept here were destroyed.
Our editors' tip
This is the rare ruin you can actually walk into, free of charge and right in the centre, on the Via Francigena. Lean out from the turrets: you grasp at once why a fortified house stood exactly there, on the road.