Vauban

This morning we took the ferry across the Golfe and the channel to Belle-Île-en-Mer. From there we walked to our campsite, put up our tent and the foraged for food at the local Super-U. Once that was done we went for a walk in the afternoon into town. Today''s back blip is a close up of a section of the Vauban citadel that dominates Le Palais the capital of the island. It was designed by French military genius Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, Marquis de Vauban. He used low walls (compared with medieval fortification) that were super thick to withstand canon fire, and triangular patterns to create death zones should the enemy penetrate one section of the defences. This is the canon ports of one such section.



Around the town is an even larger Vauban Urbaine which protects the town from the other side.


The wonderful irony about Vauban is that his forts were the state of the art when he started to build them, but obsolete before he died and French continued to build them at great expense even though he no longer advocated them at all.


Look on a map of a fortified French town, and if you see triangles then it's his design, even if he didn't personally design it. The extra is where these cannon ports point - you'll notice you wouldn't want to stand where I am taking the picture from if they didn't like you...