About an hour's drive south of Cap-Haïtien, the Citadelle Laferrière is one of the most spectacular fortifications in the Americas and, together with the ruined Sans-Souci Palace below it, forms a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Citadelle was built by Henri Christophe, the Haitian revolutionary leader who became king, to defend the new nation against a feared French reconquest that never came. It sits on a mountain peak at 970 metres, with walls up to 40 metres high and a capacity for 5,000 soldiers.
The scale is astonishing — a nineteenth-century fortification of this size and sophistication in a newly independent nation is unlike anything else in the region. The Sans-Souci Palace at the base of the mountain was the royal court, now a romantic ruin after the 1842 earthquake. The combined site is the single most important historical monument in Haiti. Getting there from Cap-Haïtien requires hiring a moto-taxi or car to the village of Milot, then either hiking or riding a horse up to the Citadelle.