The two surviving towers
All that is left of a fort demolished in the 19th century.
Guiguilacagouille — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Delphine MUZEAU — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Guiguilacagouille — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Herman van der Hem — Public domain
Two round stone towers are all that remains of the **Château du Hâ**, the fortress built by **Charles VII of France** in the middle of the fifteenth century after Aquitaine was retaken from the English at the end of the Hundred Years' War. The castle was not built to protect Bordeaux but **to control it**: the city had spent three centuries under English rule and prospered by it, and did not greet the returning French crown with enthusiasm, so the king built two forts to hem it in — the Hâ to the west and the Trompette on the river — with guns pointed inward. The castle then served for centuries as a **prison**, and that is what stayed in the city's memory: in Bordeaux the name "Hâ" meant the jail before it meant the castle. Most of it was demolished in the nineteenth century and only these two towers survive, the better known being the **Tour des Minimes**, the defence tower. It stands today in a judicial and administrative quarter of the centre near the law faculty, and seeing it from outside takes minutes — but it is one of the last traces of medieval Bordeaux.
All that is left of a fort demolished in the 19th century.
A fort built to control the city, not defend it.
Among the few survivals of the pre-classical city.
Rue du Hâ, 33000 Bordeaux
Museum of Fine ArtsBordeaux's Fine Arts museum is among France's oldest provincial museums — founde2 minutes walk4.2
Bordeaux Cathedral (Saint-André)Bordeaux's cathedral witnessed two marriages that changed Europe: here Eleanor o2 minutes walk4.7
Pey-Berland TowerThe Pey-Berland is Bordeaux cathedral's bell tower — standing alone metres away 3 minutes walk4.6
Museum of Decorative Arts and DesignBordeaux's Decorative Arts Museum (known as the madd) occupies a noble eighteent4 minutes walk4.3
Musée d'AquitaineThe museum to start Bordeaux with, if you want to understand what you see afterw5 minutes walk4.6Not usually. The site is **not a visitor attraction** with published hours; it sits inside an institutional and judicial precinct in the centre, and the normal visit is seeing it free from the street in a few minutes. The towers open **exceptionally** for occasions such as the European Heritage Days in September or for announced events, and that is a rare opportunity worth booking. Ask the Bordeaux tourist office if your trip falls in September.
Not as a destination in itself; yes as a stop. The visit from outside takes ten minutes and what you see is two stone towers in an administrative setting unlike the rest of Bordeaux. But its value is **contextual**: the Bordeaux you see is almost entirely eighteenth century — matching yellow stone and classical frontages — and these towers are fifteenth, from the city that came before and was largely erased. They are minutes from the cathedral and the Musée d'Aquitaine, so take them in on the way.