Travelog post for: Nami Geneveva

We drove on to Bitche. It's a town in north-eastern France that's built around a citadel that's about 80m above the town.

When we walked toward the citadel we passed the city hall and were surprised to see real storchs nesting on top of it.


This is the view on Bitche from the citadel. A castle was built here in the 12th century by the dukes of Lorraine that passed to Eberhard I of Zweibrücken in 1297 as part of a marriage contract. When his line became extinct a few hundred years later it reverted to Lorraine and was captured by the French in the 17th century.

The citadel was first built in the 17th century by Vauban, but was rebuilt starting in 1740 by Cormontaigne.

It has a separate, deep well inside and a bombsafe ring of the local sandstone. That way it held against Bavarian troups for 230 days, until the end of the war in 1870. There are movies about that.
Two gates are devided by this draw-bridge. Can you see us?


These wheels pull up the bridge.

The citadel was held by a Prussian garrison until 1918 when it was returned to France. During WWII it was bombed by the allied troops and damaged so badly that it couldn't be used after 1945.

Now other species have found an ideal home here.




The citadel was part of the Ligne Maginot. The US Army broke through it around Bitche in March 1945.