Château de Brissac

A castle has stood on this site since the 11th century, when Fulk III "the Black", Count of Anjou, built a medieval fortress of wood and stone. Brissac changed hands several times until 1434, when Jean de la Haye, Lord of Brissac, ceded the fief to Pierre de Brézé. In 1502 it was purchased by René Cossé, whose descendants have lived there ever since — 18 generations. The old castle was demolished except for two medieval twin towers, and a new 17th-century baroque château was built against them, making it the tallest inhabited château in France. In 1792 it was looted during the French Revolution and left in ruins before its later restoration.

Important: Château de Brissac is above all a visit destination — the tallest inhabited château in Europe, with 204 rooms in total — and only a small, seasonal fraction of it functions as overnight accommodation. The château has 204 rooms across 7 floors and 48 meters of height, but from mid-April to mid-October only 3 of them operate as a bed-and-breakfast, furnished with antique furniture, Flemish tapestries and crystal chandeliers.

The château's documented 11th-century origins, followed by 18 continuous generations of the same family since 1502, give Brissac one of the longest single-family ownership records in the entire France collection.

The survival of two medieval twin towers, incorporated directly into the 17th-century baroque rebuilding, ties the current "giant of the Loire" silhouette physically back to the original medieval fortress.

The fact that only 3 of the château's 204 rooms operate as overnight accommodation, and only for half the year, distinguishes Brissac sharply from the full-service château-hotels found elsewhere in this collection — this is fundamentally a heritage visit site with a very limited, seasonal bed-and-breakfast add-on.

The château's position in Brissac-Quincé, between Angers and Saumur, gives guests visiting or staying at Brissac easy access to two of Anjou's other major historic towns.