Tour sans Venin

En un regard

Le château en bref

Perched at 666 metres above sea level on the foothills of the Vercors, above the hamlet of Pariset, the Tour sans Venin overlooks Grenoble from some 450 metres below. This stretch of masonry is the last surviving witness to the château of Pariset, built in the 13th century on a site where a timber tower already stood in the 11th century. The château belonged to the Dauphins of Viennois at the time of the inquest of 1339, and its lords were opposed to those of Sassenage in a territorial dispute. Curtain walls, a round tower and a cistern can still be made out around the keep, while the small Romanesque chapel of Notre-Dame de Pariset stands at its foot. Listed among the Seven Wonders of the Dauphiné, the tower gave rise to a persistent legend that no snake could survive in its vicinity. The site now hosts a radio and television transmitter and can be discovered on walks from Grenoble.