Vincennes and a Bit of Paris

Our Paris timeshare was in the neighboring town of Vincennes, which is not technically part of Paris, but where I was corrected by a shopkeeper that they do consider themselves to be part of Paris. Fair enough, it is just over the border anyway. It is a lovely neighborhood, with lots of shops and their very own chateau, the Chateau de Vincennes. On our first full day in Paris, a Saturday, we decided to stay local and get to know our neighborhood. We asked the concierge at our timeshare for a recommendation for lunch, and she sent us to a truly lovely restaurant, Nido. The food, ambiance, and service were all excellent. We were there on a Saturday at lunch, and the place quickly filled up with young families with extremely well behaved children. We started to feel like perhaps we needed to rent a toddler, as we were one of only two or three tables without youngsters. I couldn’t help but compare to a restaurant that full of pre-school aged kids in the U.S., and I’m afraid American kids would be found wanting. The wait staff really knew how to take care of these families too. The middle aged American women were clearly in want of a leisurely lunch, with appetizers (which are called entrees in France, which makes sense as it is the entrance into the meal, but still took a little getting used to for us) and wine and so on, so our food came out more slowly. The children’s meals came out rather quickly, which did help.

Anyway, after our lovely, leisurely lunch, we walked around the town, looked in the grocery stores (always fun to see cereal in other countries, for some reason), and ended up at the Chateau, which was fortuitous because there was some sort of military exhibit going on that day, with people dressed up in period costumes and so on.

From Wikipedia, which I linked above, here is a bit of history of the Chateau:

It was largely built between 1361 and 1369, and was a preferred residence, after the Palais de la Cité, of French Kings in the 14th to 16th century. It is particularly known for its “donjon” or keep, a fortified central tower, the tallest in Europe, built in the 14th century, and for the chapel, Sainte-Chapelle de Vincennes, begun in 1379 but not completed until 1552, which is an exceptional example of Flamboyant Gothic architecture. Because of its fortifications, the château was often used as a royal sanctuary in times of trouble, and later as a prison and military headquarters. The chapel was listed as an historic monument in 1853, and the keep was listed in 1913. Most of the building is now open to the public.

On Sunday, we started out going to a once a week market in Vincennes. It was similar to our local Farmers’ Markets, but with a lot more variety of vendors. There were people selling bras and yarn and needles and threads and all kinds of things that seemed very miscellaneous to me. There were flowers, like those above.

As you can see, the horses are pulling buggies. We stayed long enough to see three races, two were buggy races, and one the horses were ridden. All of the races were trotters, which means the horses have to trot, not gallop. If they gallop, they are disqualified. I couldn’t figure out how to place a bet until the 3rd race, and even then the English language pages of the betting machine didn’t work, so we had to try in French. I thought the horse that was highlighted on the list of names had been scratched, so did not bet on that horse. Turns out that was the favorite, and of course that horse won. We each bet on 2 horses, though one of them was the same horse. All of our horses got too excited and started galloping, so they were all disqualified. Carey was VERY excited when our horse started galloping and got in front just at the finish line, she thought we had won. I had to explain how trotting worked, and that indeed we had lost our 2 Euro. It was great fun anyway.

After the horse races, we took the Metro into downtown Paris to see the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs-Élysées, and perhaps take a Seine river cruise. One Sunday a month, the Champs-Elysees is closed to traffic, and we were fortunate that this happened to be that Sunday. It was still crowded, with a lot of tourists everywhere, but it was great to see the Arc, and fun to walk past all of the high end stores. Eventually we found our way to the Seine, and thought perhaps we could get a cruise, but we were too late, so we decided to call it a day. It was a wonderful first couple of days in Paris.