Hello from Paris!: Château, Fondue, and Mom's visit (part 4)

Ok on this day I wanted to show my Mom a château and take her around all the bigger sights in Paris that are usually the places that attract the tourists, like Notre Dame and Hôtel de Ville. So we started with the Château de Vincennes, which was actually a new sight for me too.

Remember how the château in Angers was like a fortress with a castle inside? This was the same, but a LOT bigger. There were several huge buildings inside, including a chapel, the king's residence, and other buildings that serve as gift shops today.

Here's the chapel.

And here's the king's residence. And the king gets a mini-fortress too! I want a mini-fortress...

This was the main entrance. On the left is the huge building holding the librarie (book shop) and souvenir shop. They had some pretty interesting gifts, including a cookbook with recipes from the Middle Ages to today.

Another view of the chapel. The chapel here looked to be about twice as big as the chapel in Angers.

Here I am on the bridge to the king's residence!

Mom always catches me at weird moments...

Here's a panoramic view of the back of the fortress...

....and here's a view of the front! (Remember you can click on the picture to make it bigger)

Side note: Mom also has a panoramic function on her camera and she tried using it and, well... let's just say I give her an A for effort. :D (Paris seems more mountainous through her lens, ha ha... just kidding, Mom)

This is part of the Bois de Vincennes (the woods).

Part of the moat surrounding the king's residence.

Part of the moat around the fortress itself.

After seeing the château, I took Mom to the center of Paris to see the more famous monuments, and we started at Hôtel de Ville.

By the way, I didn't figure this out until after I came to Paris this time, but the Hôtel de Ville is NOT a hotel where people come to stay for a few nights on vacation. It's more like the mayor's office for Paris, and it hosts some of it's biggest events.

And while we were there, we found people ice skating! I knew they set up a rink in front of the Hôtel de Ville before I went home for Christmas, but I didn't know it was still there. They even had a carousel going too! Here's a video I took of the area:

One thing we noticed about the people skating here is that they all seem to know what they're doing on the ice. Back in Atlanta, they also set up a rink for Christmas, but most of the people skating were just learning (like me this past Christmas), or enthusiastic amateurs. But in Paris you have kids speeding around the rink like it's the Olympics, doing expert turns and not hitting anything in the process! In this video I managed to capture more of the better skaters. There's one guy in black doing spins, a guy in all blue doing some interesting turns, and some others speeding around everyone else. I think it's hilarious how the guy in the blue seems to make ice skating look so cool, like only the bad kids can skate that well. And towards the end you can see him stopping really fast to throw ice on his friend:

I didn't notice this until later, but I think the little exchange between me and my mom is so funny-
ME: ...if he knows I'm filming he'll show off more. (talking about the blue guy)
MOM: Oh, will he?
ME: Yea.
(pause)
MOM: Want me to point?
ME: No.

Ha ha ha...

Anyway, here's a panoramic view of the ice skating rink.

After that, I took her to Île de la Cité (EEL deh lah see TAY), which is a tiny island in the middle of the Seine river and where a lot of the bigger and famous buildings are located, including the Conciergerie and Notre Dame.

This is called the Palais de justice, and today they still use it as the prefecture of police and the courts.

The steeple is part of Saint Chapelle, another famous cathedral.

Here's a side of the Conciergerie.

This is the clock on the side of one of the towers of the Conciergerie. It's been there since 1371.

Me and Mom on the Seine!

Panorama of Île de la Cité.

Next, we stopped for a bite to eat at Châtelet (shah teh LAY), which is an area in the center of Paris close to Île de la Cité.

And here's another odd picture of me compliments of my mom. :P

Later on that night, Monica and I took my mom out to try fondue!

Mom and I both had the fondue savoyarde, which is a fondue of different types of cheese melted with white wine, and it came with pieces of bread for dipping in the cheese, slices of meat, and a small salad. We also had a kir before the dinner as an apéritif (ah pear ee TEEF), which is made with one part crème de cassis and two parts white wine. (It's the rose-colored drink on the table.)