Bois de Vincennes - Features

Features

At the north end of the Bois de Vincennes stands the Château de Vincennes, which used to be a favorite second home for many 14th century kings. Now in renovation, it is still open to the public. In the southwest of the park stands the Redoute de Gravelle, a military redoubt constructed under the reign of Louis-Philippe in the 19th century.

The Bois de Vincennes is home to several sports venues. In the eastern part lies a hippodrome specialising in trotting races. There is also a velodrome, and the French national institute of sports and physical education.

In the west is a 14.5ha zoo, permanently established in 1934 in place of a smaller, temporary zoo constructed for the 1931 Exposition coloniale internationale. The zoo breeds Asian elephants, and its most notable feature is a 65m high monolith, home to a herd of mouflons.

The Arboretum de l'École du Breuil, in the park's southeast corner, is a municipal arboretum established on this location in 1936.

Read more about this topic:  Bois De Vincennes

Famous quotes containing the word features:

    All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask!
    Herman Melville (1819–1891)

    However much we may differ in the choice of the measures which should guide the administration of the government, there can be but little doubt in the minds of those who are really friendly to the republican features of our system that one of its most important securities consists in the separation of the legislative and executive powers at the same time that each is acknowledged to be supreme, in the will of the people constitutionally expressed.
    Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)

    Each reader discovers for himself that, with respect to the simpler features of nature, succeeding poets have done little else than copy his similes.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)