Fort du Mont Alban

This guide to Fort du Mont Alban above Nice follows a small chapel to Saint Alban that stood on this hilltop before any soldier arrived, and the military engineers who chose in the 1550s to build their star-shaped fortress around it rather than clear it away. It traces the design disputes behind the ace-of-spades bastions, ordered by Duke Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy after the disastrous siege of Nice. Look out from the walls toward both the bay of Villefranche and the approach to Nice as you listen.