Middle Ages still echo in southern Beaujolais

Châtillon lies along the Azergues River, a once-strategic route from Lyon to the northwest, the scene in the 11th and 12th centuries of a furious game of tit-for-tat castle building between the bishops of Lyon and the dukes of Beaujeu for control of trade through the valley.

The pawns of this conflict, Châtillon and its neighboring villages, have changed little since then. Time, though, has turned the southwest of Beaujolais into a quiet backwater. Despite its easy proximity by car to Lyon, travelers through here are rare and prettied-up tourist sites are rarer still. The only nod to modern tourism in the Azergues Valley is a series of discreet signs in French and English on important sites in every town, one of which I have stumbled upon. A map points me to the village’s former high street just one block over from the 21st century.

Though the sounds of life in the Middle Ages have faded, any errant wayfarer from that period would recognize these ancient stone buildings. There’s the inn, its 13th-century windows that still open and its stone counter, now laden with flowers, where barmaids once slid platefuls of sustenance and vessels of strong drink to patrons. Up the street is the communal well where generations of townsfolk drew buckets of water and, around the corner, the shop where tradesmen of one guild or another hawked their wares. Above it all and still casting a long shadow over everything below is the castle, small but mighty with a stout tower. The only intact medieval fortress in the Rhône département, its sign tells me after I have trudged up the hill.