Le Quartier Latin et Château Vincennes

Today I woke up bright and early for what would end up being a ridiculously long day.  By ten o'clock my entire group was leaving the Foyer.  We walked about a block to a bus stop, where we waited a few minutes then took the bus to Rue Mouffetard (another street in the Latin Quarter).  Every day of the week except for Monday, Rue Mouffetard is home to an open air market with fresh produce, bread, meat, and other foods.  

We began our tour of the Latin Quarter here and quickly moved down past the Marché, dozens of boulangeries (bakeries), pâtisseries (pastry shops), boucheries (butcher's), cafés, and of course, chocolatiers.  Our tour then lead us to La Place de la Contrescarpe where Delma's is located.

Delma's is the café where Ernest Hemingway used to hang out, since it was just down the street from his apartment, which we passed next.

Back in the day, Hemingway lived on the fourth floor of the building on the right.  After seeing his home we continued down the street, stopping to make a quick turn onto a teeny side street to take a look at one of the remaining fragments of Paris' old wall.

Way back in the twelfth century Philip Auguste, the king of France, built a wall to surround and protect his city.  Today, not much of it remains, but you can see pieces of it here and there (mainly on the right bank, this is one of the few on the left).  Continuing our look at ancient history in Paris, we walked to Les arènes de Lutèce, an ancient Roman Amphitheater whose ruins are still in the city today.

After leaving Les arènes de Lutèce we proceeded to one of the most popular Marchés on the right bank, the Marché Monge.  Open only three days a week, the Marché is full of fruit, vegetables, nuts, fish, eggs, flowers, meats, olives, breads, pastries, and various other foods.  All fresh and all local.  After visiting this last market, we picked up sandwiches we'd ordered yesterday from a bakery nearby and walked back to the Luxembourg Gardens where we all sat and ate together as a group.

After lunch we took the métro out to the outskirts of the city on the southeastern side to visit one of the oldest and best preserved château in Europe: Le Château de Vincennes.

The château is in fact only part of what is actually a giant compound complete with outer walls (some crumbling), military barracks, a large Sainte-Chappelle, and various other wings and buildings,

The church, known as Sainte-Chappelle, is not THE Sainte-Chappelle, but it is modeled after the famous one located in Paris.  This Sainte-Chappelle, however, did house some major relics for its similarly named counterpart at one point.  Relics including pieces of Jesus' thorn of crowns and fragments of the cross. 

Mainly however, the church was just used as a royal chapel for the Royalty that lived in the Château, as it was a royal palace.

After our trip to the outskirts of the city, we caught a métro train back into the city and went to the Parc Zoologique de Vincennes.  It's not actually the Paris Zoo, but instead a large green park where children can take pony rides, people can congregate, stroll, bike ride, or even rent rowboats.

After a leisurely ride around the small lake in the park, we headed back to the Latin Quarter for the night.  For dinner, a group of us went out to find a restaurant, only to find most of them closed (not much of a surprise, given that it's Sunday).  We ended up eating at a nice Italian restaurant, where I ordered Neapolitano Pizza (complete with whole salted anchovies).  Surprisingly, having fish on pizza doesn't taste that bad.  I wouldn't say it's one of my favorite meals, but it was definitely worth trying!