Vauban's fortifications, a UNESCO World Heritage group, include the citadels of Lille and Besançon, the Mont-Louis citadel, the ramparts of Saint-Martin-de-Ré, Mont-Dauphin, Neuf-Brisach and the Asfeld Bridge at Briançon.
Louis XIV's military engineer drew a belt of strongholds around France. Each stop here is a place you can still walk through, and each shows a different way of making a border hard to cross.
Stops follow the date each fortress was begun. Some of them are still working towns, not just monuments.
Kalos is Metropolitan France turned into a star-shaped Pokémon region. Lumiose City is inspired by Paris, its Prism Tower by the Eiffel Tower and its art museum by the Louvre; the Battle Château recalls Chenonceau on the Loire, the palais Chaydeuvre is the château de Versailles, and the stones outside Geosenge Town are the Carnac stones. The games never confirm their models — these are fan and encyclopaedia identifications — so every pin on this route is speculative.
The route follows the story across the real France behind Kalos: the town where the adventure begins, Lumiose's iron tower, two châteaux and a royal palace, a coastal aquarium, the island tower where Mega Evolution is learned, the cathedral clock behind Anistar's sundial, the Breton megalith field where Team Flare hides its ultimate weapon, and an abandoned mine where the legendary Zygarde sleeps.
