The keep is hexagonal, a shape found almost nowhere else in the Aosta Valley: the one close comparison is the tower of Pramotton, with which this castle kept visual contact to exchange light signals along the valley. Francesco Corni traces the inspiration to the English castles of Caernarfon and Arundel.
What to see
The complex, also called the castellaccio or Château vieux, stands on a morainic rise at the mouth of the Lys valley and is now a ruin. The curtain wall follows the shape of the promontory, where glacier-smoothed rocks fall away to the east, and opened with a single controllable entrance to the south, at the only point the ground allowed. To the west the living quarters can still be read: the chapel and the kitchen, of which the domed vault survives with its central hole to let the smoke out, similar in size to the one in the castle of Introd. At one corner a cylindrical hanging turret still rises, decorated with blind arches like the Piedmontese castles of the early fifteenth century.
Visiting
The castle belonged to the nobles of Pont-Saint-Martin, a branch of the Bard family created on 19 July 1214, when the brothers Hugues de Bard and Guillaume divided the family estates. Guillaume's heirs refused to submit to the Savoy until 1337 and attacked the castle of Bard more than once. In 1447 Antoine was briefly dispossessed by duke Amedeo VIII; by about 1460 the place was already falling apart and his sons asked to be allowed to restore it, getting it back in 1466. It was later abandoned for the more comfortable fortified house down in the town.
Our editors' tip
Start from the town with the Roman bridge behind you, follow part of the mule track towards Perloz, then turn right onto a steep path through the vineyards: less than half an hour on foot. Wear proper shoes, because the path is what it is.