Guédelon began in 1997 when Michel Guyot, owner of the nearby Château de Saint-Fargeau, and a group of partners decided to build a castle the way it would have been done under Philip Augustus, in a disused sandstone quarry in the Guédelon forest near Treigny in the Puisaye, about two hours south of Paris. The premise is that a minor lord starts work in 1228 and the builders advance their calendar by a year each season. Nearly three decades on, the towers, curtain walls, great hall and chapel tower stand, and the 2026 programme centres on the gatehouse between two towers, its portcullis and the east curtain wall. The carpentry techniques rehearsed here were used in rebuilding the roof of Notre-Dame de Paris after the 2019 fire.
Visitors walk freely around the site and its workshops: quarrymen splitting stone, masons dressing and setting it, lime-burners and mortar-makers, carpenters squaring oak with axes, a blacksmith forging tools, tile and pottery kilns, rope-makers, dyers and basket-makers, with horse-drawn carts and a treadwheel crane moving materials. The workers answer questions as they go, and guided tours and workshops can be booked. From 2026 visitors can for the first time walk the full circuit of the enclosure. Allow three to four hours; weekdays outside the French school holidays are quietest.
The 2026 season runs from 2 April to 1 November. In summer the site opens daily from 9:30 to 18:30; in spring and from September it opens 10:00–17:30 or 18:00 and closes on certain Tuesdays and Wednesdays, so check the opening calendar on guedelon.fr before travelling. Adult tickets cost €19 to €21 and children aged 5–17 €13 to €15 depending on the season; students pay €16 and under-fives enter free. There are two restaurants, picnic areas, a free car park with electric-vehicle charging, and dogs on a lead are welcome; the site is partly accessible to wheelchair users.
Guédelon lies on the D955 between Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye and Saint-Amand-en-Puisaye, and a car is the practical way to reach it: there is no regular bus, and the nearest railway stations (Cosne-sur-Loire and Auxerre) are each roughly a 45-minute drive away. The site is closed from early November until the following spring.
