City Center Saumur

The "white city" of Saumur is located in the Loire part of France, a town built of pale tuffeau stone with a white glimmer to it. The fascinating part of Saumur is its many miles of networked tunnels, used to excavate this precious stone for bridges, palaces, and castles during its days of early antiquity. To finely display this early architecture is the 14th century Chateau de Saumur which overlooks this historical town, originally used as a palace. After that it was turned into a prison, where the Marquis de Sade was kept inside, one of various prisons where he was incarcerated during his life, in addition to being kept in insane asylums for 32 years of his life.