Faramaz Castle (Château du Vuache)

En un regard

Le château en bref

At Vulbens, between the left bank of the Rhône and the north-western slope of Mont Vuache, two buildings succeeded one another as the seat of the Lordship of Vuache. The first, a medieval castle now vanished, controlled the river route between Geneva and Lyon; it comprised three towers, an entrance to the east and a residential block to the north. Before 1236, Pierre de Vulbens bequeathed it to Hugues de Sallenove; it then passed to the Counts of Geneva, and in 1296 Amadeus II gave it to his niece Jeanne de Genève. It remained in the House of Vienne until 1366, before passing to the Châtillon de Michaille, Ternier, Montchenu and Menthon families. Following the incorporation of the Genevois into Savoy in 1401, it lost its role and fell into ruin, and was then abandoned in the seventeenth century in favour of Faramaz Castle, built and extended in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries from an earlier tower. Excavations carried out from 1982 to 1985 traced the evolution of the original site; a marker stone now indicates its location.