Château de Caen

Start with the stone under your hand. Rest a palm on the wall nearby and feel it. It is pale, almost creamy, and slightly soft to the touch, like chalk that decided to become permanent. This is Caen stone, a fine limestone cut from quarries around the city for close to a thousand years. Wind and rain have rounded its edges here. Look up and you will see the same warm colour running along the ramparts, catching whatever light the Norman sky allows today.

You are standing inside one of the largest castle enclosures in Western Europe. The walls wrap around a broad plateau above the old city. Inside, there is room for lawns, gardens, a church, two museums and a medieval hall, with space left over. It does not feel like a single fortress. It feels more like a small walled town, emptied of houses and handed over to the sky.

The story begins around 1060, with a man the English remember as William the Conqueror. At that time he was still William, Duke of Normandy. Caen was not yet a great city, and William chose this rise above the valley to build a stronghold. He wanted a base in the heart of his duchy. A few years later, in 1066, he crossed the Channel and won the crown of England. Caen suddenly mattered on two sides of the sea.

William did not only build walls here. With his wife Matilda, he founded two great abbeys in the town below. One was for men, the Abbaye aux Hommes, and one was for women, the Abbaye aux Dames. Popular tradition says the abbeys were an act of penance. The couple were cousins, and the Church had objected to the marriage. Historians still discuss how the story fits together. But the abbeys stand today, and William himself was buried in the men's abbey.

Now for the first surprise. That pale stone under your hand did not stay in Normandy. After the Conquest, Caen stone was loaded onto boats and shipped to England. Builders used it in some of the most important medieval buildings there, including parts of the Tower of London and Canterbury Cathedral. So when visitors admire those English landmarks, they are often looking at stone from the same quarries as this castle. The two countries share more than a history of war.

William's son, Henry the First, made the castle stronger. He added a large square keep, a stone tower that served as the final refuge in a siege. Walk toward the western part of the enclosure and you will find where it stood. Only the foundations remain now, low outlines in the grass. The keep was pulled down during the French Revolution, when symbols of royal and feudal power were attacked across France. What you see is the footprint of a giant.

Nearby stands a building that did survive: the Exchequer Hall, from the early twelfth century. It is a long, plain stone hall with tall windows. It is one of the oldest civil buildings of its kind in Normandy. The name is linked to the chequered cloth that officials are said to have used when counting money and settling accounts. The same word, exchequer, still names the treasury in Britain. A small piece of medieval office life is hidden in that vocabulary.

The castle did not stay Norman and English forever. In 1204, the French king Philip Augustus took Normandy, and Caen came under the French crown. Then came the Hundred Years' War, the long struggle between the kings of England and France. English armies captured Caen twice, in 1346 and again in 1417. The walls you are walking along were repaired, thickened and changed again and again. Look closely and you can often see different building phases, different stones, sitting side by side.

Over later centuries the castle lost its military purpose, slowly. It became a barracks. Soldiers lived and drilled where tourists now stroll. Houses and streets crowded up against the walls, and the fortress almost disappeared inside the growing city. Many people living in Caen at that time barely noticed it was there.

The second surprise comes from the twentieth century. In the summer of 1944, during the Battle of Normandy, Caen was heavily bombed and fought over for weeks. Much of the old city was destroyed. Yet the destruction cleared away many of the buildings that had hidden the castle. After the war, the ramparts stood exposed again, and restoration began. In a strange way, the war gave the city back its castle. The open space around you today is partly a result of that hard summer.

Today, the enclosure is a cultural centre more than a fortress. The Musée de Normandie tells the story of the region and its people, from early times to rural life. The Musée des Beaux-Arts, the fine arts museum, sits in a modern building inside the walls, with European paintings across several centuries. There is also the small Church of Saint-Georges, once a parish church for the people who lived within the castle. Each needs its own time, so choose one if your day is short.

If you do one thing, climb onto the ramparts. From the top, the city opens out. You can see the spires of the Church of Saint-Pierre just below, and further off, the towers of William's abbey for men. On a clear day, the rebuilt city spreads in pale stone in every direction. Down inside the walls, look for the garden of medieval plants. It grows herbs and flowers that monks and cooks would have known, labelled for curious visitors.

Before you leave, pause for a moment and listen. You may hear traffic beyond the walls, voices from the lawns, perhaps a bell from Saint-Pierre. Nine centuries of rulers, soldiers and townspeople passed through the gate you will use on your way out. Touch the stone once more if you like. It is the same stone that crossed the sea to England. And as you walk back down into Caen, notice how often that same pale colour appears in the streets around you.