Le Château de Cormatin

A common “fact” often quoted around here is that the château in Cormatin is the most visited tourist site in our département (Saône-et-Loire). I don’t know what people base this information on and whilst I have happily passed on this “fact” to others as true, I have always had my doubts about it. Even though you often see a whole row of tourist buses outside the château, if you see the number of tourists hanging around in Cluny it is difficult to imagine that more tourists visit our little town than visit Cluny abbey.

The other day we saw a little article in the paper with the actual figures for 2010 and here you have it:

1 - Touroparc a zoo in Romanèche-Thorins just south of Mâcon : 190,315 visitors.
2 - The Abbey in Cluny : 152,809 visitors
3 - Parc des Combes a fun park in Le Creusot : 137,000 visitors.
4 - Hameau Duboeuf a wine centre in Romanèche-Thorins : 110,517 visitors.
5 - Paray-le-Monial pilgrim centre : 73,283 visitors.
6 - Château de Cormatin : 60,698 visitors.
7 - Bibracte an archeological park in Saint-Léger-sous-Beuvray in the Morvan : 43,179 visitors.

The figures for Cluny are slightly distorted as there were a huge number of visitors who came to Cluny for the 2010 celebrations. In a normal year they have just over 100,000 visitors.

So there you have it folks, our château may not be the most visited tourist site in Saône-et-Loire, but it is certainly the most visited château in Saône-et-Loire.

This got me thinking about how many tourists actually visit our tiny little town each year, let’s forget the hundreds of thousands who walk down from Taizé for a moment and just stick with the château figures. We have a whopping great 120 visitors for every resident - no wonder you have to fight for a seat on a terrace in the summer!

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