Planning aside, sometimes I simply stumble upon some things that capture my interest, without having it planned. In this installment of Besides le Louvre, Versailles and la Tour Eiffel, I will talk about two of such places – Chateau de Vincennes and Jeu de Paume.

Chateau de Vincennes

I was staying in a hostel in the 12me arrondissement, in a north-eastern corner of the city. It was the first day of the public transport workers’ strike and I had to arrange my activities so that I did not have to rely much on public transportation. The city of Vincennes happened to be just within walking distance from where I stayed in the 12me arrondissement. That became a natural choice for me to spend my afternoon.

In the compounds of Chateau de Vincennes were several buildings built over the course of a few centuries by the kings of those eras. It was first built in the 14th century and more buildings were added to it by the later kings. The buildings were originally the residence of royalties. In the later years, parts of them were used to hold prisoners.

A remarkable building at Chateau de Vincennes is its donjon, a fortified medieval tower. It consists of a 8-storey high tower, where Charles V, King of France in the late 14th century, resided and had his office housed. The building is well-restored and the thing I like about visiting historical buildings like this is that it ignites my imagination, getting me started to try visualise how a person’s life is like hundreds of years ago.

The donjon is one of the buildings – the oldest – in the compounds of Chateau de Vincennes. It is made up of a tower and its fortified walls.

The donjon’s tower, at 50 m high, is the tallest medieval building of its kind that remains in Europe.

In the days of King Charles V, the doors (only one is visible here) on the ground floor of the donjon’s tower were not present. Access to the tower was through the bridge, which led to a door on the 1st floor. A flight of steps brought (and it still does) the visitor up the first level of the fortified wall of the donjon to access this bridge.

Photographs of the painted interior decor of King Charles V’s quarters in the donjon.

A wide spiral staircase in the donjon. I believe these were the stairs the king used to move between his bedroom and his office, which were housed in different levels of the donjon.

The donjon was used as a prison in the 17th and 18th centuries. This room was used to house prisoners. The paintings on the walls are works of the prisoner who was imprisoned here.

More information is available at the chateau’s website.

Jeu du paume

I was not aware of the existence of this place and only came across it by chance and stepped into it out of curiosity. I noticed this little building at the northwestern corner of the Tuileries as I stepped out of the metro at Place de la Concorde. My original plan was to walk across the river to visit the Musée d’Orsay, but the interesting name of this place caught my attention.

Literally, “jeu du paume” means “a game of palm”. It was a game similar to tennis that was played in France and we can think of it as the “ancestor” of tennis. So, what is there in a place with such a name, which sits in a royal garden in front of the Louvre? It was curiosity that prompted me to walk over and take a look.

Jeu du Paume is a gallery, or some may call it a museum. Its role is to promote photography and mechanical or electronic images and is a key venue for exhibitions of this nature. The building in the Tuileries is one of its two venues in Paris. This building was constructed by Napoléon III as a jeu du paume court. It later became an exhibition hall in 1909. In 1922, major works to the building transformed it to a museum that housed permanent art works. In 1987, the interior of the building was remodeled and the Jeu de Paume that we know today was inaugurated in 1991.

When I was there, they had the photographic works of Edward Steichen on exhibit. Walking through the exhibition hall was an interesting journey, which brought me through the different stages of Steichen’s career. The subjects of Steichen’s works varied widely, given the different appointments he has held throughout his career. He was involved, as photographer, in both World Wars, in between which, he has also served as chief photographer of Vogue and Vanity Fair and made commercial photos for an advertising agency. His last appointment before retirement was Director of Photography at New York’s MoMA.

The exhibits on Steichen will run until the end of 2007. More information on Jeu du Paume can be found on its website.

There are many museums and galleries in Paris, many of them of good quality. What I got out of the unplanned visits like mine left me with a deep sense of satisfaction.

These are just some of the iconic Parisian attractions. They certainly have plenty to offer to visitors, but they definitely do not set the limits to what can be discovered during a visit to Paris. For my recent trip to Paris, my plan was to visit two neighbouring cities – Chartres and Fontainebleau.

Chartres

I was there, in this city 96 km southwest of Paris, a couple of years back. This historical town is known for its well-preserved Gothic cathedral, la cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres, dating back to the medieval days, and which today dominates the skyline of Chartres.

I left the city after my first visit with regret, the reason being that I could not capture the beautiful stained glass in the cathedral on film, for I was too lazy to carry my tripod with me and left it in my Paris hostel. This was the main reason for my return.

Apart from the cathedral, Chartres also boasts a well-preserved old town. A walking tour in the old town brings one in front of numerous houses built in the Middle Ages. The oldest house in Chartres dates back to the 12th century. Bridges, wash houses and water mills from the olden days are still present in today’s old town.

Chartres has its own delicacies, which visitors can purchase from the local artisan confectioners. Among them are the macaroons and the mentchikoffs that satisfy my sweet tooth so well. The latter is a sort of chocolate praline covered with meringue, which is a white, crispy shell made from beaten egg whites.

Plenty of information is available from the website of Chartres’ tourism office.

Fontainebleau

My original plans were to visit Fontainebleau’s chateau and to have a hike in its vast forests. The chateau of Fontainebleau has served the monarchs of France for more than 700 years. The kings and emperors who have used and restored the chateau include Louis XIV and Napoleon. I heard the city mentioned several times by different French teachers of mine and I thought I ought to visit it when I get a chance to.

My visit to Fontainebleau turned out to be not like what I had originally planned for it to be. I ended up visiting the campus of a renowned educational institution over there. That was on a day where the Parisian rail workers were still on strike. Despite the strike that badly affected train schedules on some Parisian lines, I managed to make my way to this city about 80 km southeast of Paris.

I did catch a glimpse of the chateau, and had wanted to return the following day. However, seeing that train services was not going to improve much the next day in light of the strike, I decided to put away my plans. I believe I will get a chance to go there again.

Website of Fontainebleau’s tourism office.

I flew into Paris via Frankfurt, which was where I went through the immigration checks. Here is an excerpt of the exchange I had with the immigration officer.

Yours truly: (Handed over my passport) Guten Morgen!

Immigration officer: (Removed the boarding pass that was in between the pages of my passport and threw a glance on it) Ah! Nach Paris! What are you doing in Paris?

Yours truly: Well, I’m there for business!

Immigration officer: Be careful, when you are in Paris. They call it “the city of love”, you know…

Yours truly: (Trying to play along with the humour while still feeling very tired from the overnight flight) Hahaha…

Paris is indeed known by many to be a romantic city. In fact, that was the very word used by my colleague when he tried to describe his impression of the city.

While I like the character of the city and I savour every moment when I walk down a parisien street, the romantic theory does not have much effect on me. You do not need to go to Paris to feel romantic, I feel.

I have openly declared my fondness of Paris and being in Paris. It is an alluring city. I have just one complaint about the city – her tourists. There are so many of them, and it only goes to say that Paris is living up to her name of the most visited city in the world.

We see already a few of them behind the Notre Dame.

There a plenty more of them, walking along l’Avenue des Champs Elysées.

Hordes of them choking up the street right at the foot of the hill where the Basilique du Sacré Coeur is.

And I could not believe my eyes when I saw an entire congregation sitting right in front of the Basilique itself.

It turned out that a wine harvest festival was held around the Basilique that day, which probably explains why there were so many people.

These observations were made at places that are meant to be tourist attractions. So I perhaps should not complain so much since it was me who chose to revisit these places. I should have been prepared for what to expect.

On the contrary, I should be happy that in the madness of the crowd, I was still able to capture some instances of still beauty and human concentration.

A street artist working on a portrait for his customer by the river Seine.

Colourful paintings for sale at one of those street-side stores along the Seine, just north of the Quartier Latin.