25/7/13 (3)

So Vaugn was the name of guy in charge & he was very shrewd...insisting on double walls, timber bridges & his best weapon was an incredible system of tunnels in the limestone. There is miles of them & they all link up to allow manoeuvring around the Citadel without being seen from the outside.

Another view across to the River.

Looking across to the modern part of Blaye.

The entry to the Citadel from the new city side. The other entry is close to the River side.

An example of the Roman & Medieval architecture combined. 

We're off to the underground tunnels.

 The ceilings are quite high so that the soldiers could carry guns etc & still run for quick action.

Now we're going into some of the deeper tunnels.

Because the limestone is porous, the walls have leached & turned white. Nice look Nick.

Now you can see how high the ceilings were.

One of the original doors from down here.

This is one of the ventilation shafts to circulate clean air into the maze of tunnels. To increase the airflow, they set up a series of hydraulic (water) falls that doubled as their water supply.

More tunnels.

This was an area that they stored munitions & powder. It's not too deep down so that it won't be affected by the humidity of the tunnel systems.

 The stairs back to freedom, all cut from the stone.

During the German invasion of WWII, this area was used by the Germans as a practice range for firearms. Interestingly enough, the French Resistence used the tunnel systems against the Germans.

The vertical pillars are original & the horizontal ones were added by the Germans during the war.