Vincennes is eight minutes from central Paris by metro, and about four centuries removed from anything most visitors expect to find at the end of line 1. The keep is fifty metres tall, built in the fourteenth century, and still the tallest surviving medieval tower in Europe. The complex around it, including a chapel whose windows were commissioned to rival the Sainte-Chapelle, is in a state of preservation that would be extraordinary anywhere in France.
Before Versailles, Vincennes was the primary royal residence. The kings of France hunted in the forest and held court in the château. It was here that Henry V of England died in 1422, that Mazarin died in 1661, that the young Marquis de Sade was imprisoned, and that the philosopher Diderot was held in 1749.
What you will see
The keep and the royal apartments. The donjon of Charles V, built between 1361 and 1369, rises fifty metres and remains the best-preserved medieval tower in France. Around it stand the rooms where the kings of France lived before Versailles, with their original stone fireplaces and vaulted ceilings.
The chapel, and the prisoners. The Sainte-Chapelle of Vincennes is a flamboyant Gothic chapel whose stained glass was designed to rival that of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, and much of it survives intact. The château served as a prison too, and that history runs from the Comte de Saint-Pol, executed in 1475, through Diderot and the young Marquis de Sade in the eighteenth century.
The keep of Charles V · the royal chapel · the prisoners of Vincennes
Pépin's advice
Go on a clear day. The view from the top of the keep takes in the whole of Paris. It is one of the best elevated views of the city, and almost no one knows it exists.
Allow time for the Bois de Vincennes. The forest surrounds the château, and a walk through it is the natural continuation of the morning. There is a lake twenty minutes from the gate.
