![]() ![]() ![]() An excellent and possibly more interesting alternative is Auvers-sur-Oise, the final residence and resting place of Vincent van Gogh. Many 19th-century art fans feel obliged to make a pilgrimage out to see Monet’s home and garden in Giverny-only to be overwhelmed by the site’s fierce crowds rather than its beauty. Alternatively, the RER A station of the same name is a few blocks away. Take Métro line 1 to its eastern terminus, Château de Vincennes. Getting There: Open daily (see hours and ticket prices here). The vast park has a large network of paths, a lake where you can rent boats, a botanical garden, the Parc Floral de Paris (which hosts open-air jazz), and classical music concerts in summer. After visiting the castle, you can spend the afternoon in the sprawling Vincennes Woods nearby. The donjon itself also served as a prison, detaining such infamous inmates as the Marquis de Sade and Louis XIV’s rival Nicolas Fouquet. Nobles spent bouts of time here over the centuries, including Louis XIV during his childhood, yet it was denied the refurbishments given to other castles. ![]() In the late 1300s, King Charles V expanded a former royal hunting lodge dating to the mid-12th century by added a massive defensive donjon, the tallest in Europe at 52 meters (171 ft). It’s a short, well-signposted walk from there.Īnother Métro ride will take you to one of the most interesting historical sites in Île-de-France. Getting There: Open daily with varying hours ( full details here), the Basilica can be reached from central Paris in 30–40 minutes via Métro line 13 to the Basilique de Saint-Denis station. Fortunately, most of the royals' elaborate tombs didn’t meet the same fate, and their effigies make a curious complement to the Basilica’s architectural heritage. Anti-monarchy Revolutionaries tossed those bones into a mass grave outside the church in 1793, although they were later gathered into an ossuary in the crypt. As such, this became an important pilgrimage site and a sort of necropolis for France, containing the remains of all but three of the kings who reigned from the 10th century through 1789. Begun in the 1130s and considered the first Gothic church, the Basilica rests upon the presumed burial site of France’s first saint, Denis. Flee the masses by discovering where the Gothic style was born, the Basilica of Saint-Denis, found just north of the city’s borders. There’s no denying that Notre-Dame is mind-blowingly beautiful, but with a whopping 14 million annual visitors, it’s swamped in high season and ranks as the most visited site in Paris. ![]()
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