Chateau de La Roche-Guyon (France)

La Roche-Guyon is a Seine River cruise port and village with a famous Chateau located in France's Val-d'Oise department (Ile-de-France region) with a population of under 1,000. The village developed around the 12th-century built castle Chateau de La Roche-Guyon.

The Chateau (manor house/fortress/lord's residence) was built to control a crossing over Seine River - one of the main trade routes for accessing France's Normandy region. The small fortress (overlooking the chateau-bas) has moat and towers and was constructed at the summit of a steep promontory (raised landmass) being hollowed out of a cliff. The fortified manor house below was built in the mid-13th-century. Major changes to the original building were made in the 17th-century, including opening new windows and adding the eastern terrace (by partly cutting into the mountain's slope). In the 18th-century, Chateau's size was largely extended by adding two new buildings and the front potager/garden (with vegetable garden).

Chateau de La Roche-Guyon is currently owned by one of France's oldest remaining noble families - the House of La Rochefoucauld, dating back/coming from the House of Limoges/Lusignan (late-10th-century).

Arboretum de La Roche is a 12-hectares forest created in 1990 as part of the 309-hectares regional forest to the north of the village. This is a popular tourist attraction that is free of charge and opens daily. The arboretum (botanical/select forest) represents a "map" consisting of several different masses of select trees representing each of Ile-de-France region's départements - including Essonne (maples), Hauts-de-Seine (limes and laurels), Seine-et-Marne (oak, dogwood, eucalyptus, blackberry, buckthorn), Yvelines (beech). At the arboretum, the region's rivers are strips of lawn.

As cruise port, La Roche-Guyon is included in the regular schedule of one of Europe's (and world's) largest river cruise companies - CroisiEurope. The next table shows the ports sequence of CroisiEurope's 6-day (La Roche-Guyon visiting) itinerary between homeports Paris and Honfleur.

In 2019, this 6-day cruise tour was offered on 3 ships (Seine Princess, Renoir, Botticelli) and priced from ~USD 1000 per person (double occupancy porthole cabin rates).

In 2020, La Roche-Guyon was included in the schedule of another major European river cruise company - AmaWaterways, with the 2009-built riverboat AmaLyra. The next table shows AmaLyra's 7-day cruise tour (themed "Paris and Normandy" roundtrip from homeport Paris and priced from ~USD 3100 pp.