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Thursday Paris
Our last full day in Paris. We all decided to have an ‘easy’ day today.
While we were watching the Tour de France the other day, the cyclists travelled through a leafy town South of Paris with an enormous Chateau. This looked so interesting that we unanimously decided to go there today. Good decision. We got off the Metro right at the end of the line and on reaching the surface were faced with the stunning entrance tower to the Chateau. First requirements though were the toilette and a coffee, which definitely go hand in hand, as public toilets are not that obvious or desirable.
The wall was part of Charles V great plan to transform Vincennes into a real fortified city 1100m long complete with 9 towers. It protected a vast area where several hundred people used to live. The towers were used as living quarters and defence.
Restoration work began just after the second world war and is still going today, and the keep was closed for 12 years. A lot of original décor, frescos, graffiti etc. has been revealed and preserved. This huge Chateau started out as a hunting lodge in the forest of Vincennes. At the start of the 100 year war (1350) John II started work on the keep and his son Charles V completed the work around 1370. Since then various royals inhabited the Chateau until the Revolution when it was adapted for military use. Today the Kings palace within the walls houses part of the Ministry of Defences Historical archives.
After taking a million photos we left the Chateau and found a lovely little restaurant for lunch. Very quaint and operated by one guy at the front and one in the kitchen. Three of us had salads and Jan fois gras with French bread. My salad was the most adventurous with slices of duck, duck gizzards and pate all of which tasted delicious. I was a bit dubious about the gizzards but hoped that the translation was not exactly literal and might have been something else – still not sure but think it might have been duck gizzards.!!!
After lunch and a beer we decided to come back home and get ourselves organised for tomorrow, do washing, blogs etc. and try and get our luggage down to a manageable level!!! Ha ha. We have quite a little walk to the Metro station, then have to change trains a couple of times – should be fun NOT.
Jan is reading the navigation manual for the boat and stressing like mad, and Paul is reading the Captains manual and imparting his little bits of wisdom. It all sounds very stressful to me. One thing I will be looking forward to is getting out of the city. 4 days in London and 7 days in Paris and I am a little over the hustle and bustle of city life.
More on the boat later. We may not have internet communications readily available so blog might be a bit sporadic from now on.
- comments
claire have loved reading all about Paris and beyond - you have seen so much - how do you remember to include such interesting detail of the historic buildings, galleries, museums etc you have seen. your brains must be chocca. love C