Tour Barberousse, Medieval castle tower in Gruissan, France

Tour Barberousse is a stone tower standing on a rocky hill in Gruissan, rising roughly 35 meters above the surrounding landscape. It offers wide views across the Mediterranean Sea and the circular village below.

The castle was built at the end of the 10th century to watch over the approaches to Narbonne's harbour and guard against Saracen pirate raids. In the 13th century the Archbishop of Narbonne, Guillaume de Broa, enlarged it. Richelieu ordered its destruction in the 17th century, after which it was abandoned; the castle ruins were listed as monuments historiques on 14 April 1948.

The name "Barberousse" means "Redbeard" in French, a nickname traditionally attached to the Ottoman admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa, whose corsair fleets raided this coast. The tower itself was raised to watch for such seaborne raids, so the popular name recalls the very threat the castle was built against.

The tower stands on a steep, rocky hill above Gruissan, reached on foot from the village that surrounds the castle ruins. The parish church of Notre-Dame de l'Assomption sits at the foot of the ruins. From the site you look over the village, the coast, the lagoon, the salt marshes and the port.

The cylindrical keep, built in dressed bossed stone in the late 13th to early 14th century, is the castle's last standing remnant. Look for the thin metal rod with a crossbar on the broken top, a survey marker rather than a flagpole. The castle was listed as a monument historique on 14 April 1948.