The story of Citadel of Namur

Napoleon is said to have nicknamed this place the termite mound of Europe, because of its vast network of underground passages. High above the meeting of the Sambre and the Meuse, rising to 190 metres, it is one of the largest citadels in Europe, with more than a thousand years of history.

It began as the castle of the Counts of Namur; the original citadel dates to 937. Twenty-three counts followed one another until 1429, when the last one, ruined and without a legitimate heir, sold the county to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. The site grew in three layers: the Donjon below, the Médiane in the middle, begun in 1542, and the upper Terra Nova, built between 1631 and 1675. Its most famous sieges came in 1692, by Louis XIV and Vauban, and in 1695, by William of Orange and Coehoorn.

It ceased to be a military post in 1891, and in the 1930s it housed a command post. Today a cable car links it to the town centre.