Just over a kilometre off the coast of Marseille, a stark white fortress rises from a small limestone island in the turquoise waters of the Bay of Marseille. The Château d'If is one of the most instantly recognizable silhouettes in southern France, immortalized by Alexandre Dumas as the inescapable prison from which Edmond Dantès, the future Count of Monte Cristo, accomplished one of literature's most celebrated escapes. Yet long before Dumas put pen to paper, the real Château d'If had already accumulated three centuries of history as fortress, prison, and silent witness to some of the most turbulent periods of the French state.
The island of If sits at the western entrance to the harbour of Marseille, in the Frioul archipelago, and the castle commands a strategic position over the sea lanes leading into one of the Mediterranean's busiest ports. Its name comes from the Old French word for the yew tree, ifs, which once grew on the otherwise barren rock. Today, the fortress is one of the most visited monuments in Marseille, drawing roughly a hundred thousand travellers each year and reachable only by a brief ferry ride from the Vieux Port.
