The castle of countess Adelaide stands on the rise dominating the historic centre of Susa, beside the Arch of Augustus, and is among the oldest castles in the valley. The name points to Adelaide of Susa, who in the eleventh century brought ancient Segusio, the lands around it, many Piedmontese fiefs and the Mont Cenis pass into the orbit of the House of Savoy; in the Middle Ages the stronghold was both the fortification and the residence of that lordship. Today it houses the civic museum and the interpretation centre for the Susa valley, reopened after restoration in 2017.
What to see
The complex is L-shaped: the east wing, shorter, faces the old town; the north wing, longer, reaches towards the Arch of Augustus, and the area between the two is separated by walls and towers partly pulled down. The east wing is dated to the tenth and eleventh centuries, Adelaide's time, and keeps some medieval features: the marble postern that gave access from the town and a fine blocked two-tone mullioned window, besides other old mullioned windows inside. The north wing looks eighteenth-century, but is built partly on Roman remains.
Visiting
What makes this place different from an ordinary castle is the layering. In the same area there coexist Celtic remains, the Arch of Augustus, walls and remnants of the Roman command area, portions of the counts' castle and a baroque wing. Scholars hold that the castle stands exactly where the centre of power already lay in pre-Roman times, in the days of the Celtic chief Donnus, and then in the Roman period: excavations have identified on the spot the Praetorium, the governor's residence, about seventy-five metres by forty-two, next to the arch.
Our editors' tip
Of that Roman palace there remain the foundations, an entrance atrium, some tesserae of a mosaic floor and a few vaults of underground rooms: little to see, a great deal to understand. It means that for two thousand years whoever ruled at Susa settled on the very same spot — Celts, Romans, medieval counts, Savoys. Come up here before visiting the rest of the town: from this point you read the valley as they read it, and you grasp why a triumphal arch ended up right beside the governor's front door.