It contains an English landscape garden with four lakes; a zoo ; an arboretum ; a botanical garden ; a hippodrome or horse-racing track; a velodrome for bicycle races; and the campus of the French national institute of sports and physical education. The park is known for prostitution after dark.
Only about half of the Bois de Vincennes is covered with trees. The bois de Vincennes was part of the ancient forest that surrounded the ancient Roman town of Lutetia ; at that time it was called Vilcena , the origin of the present name. King Philippe-Auguste β enclosed the forest with a wall, stocked it with game, and began building a castle. King Louis IX , or Saint Louis β built a chapel next to the castle to house an important religious relic, which he believed to be the crown of thorns from the Crucifixion of Jesus.
He was also famous for holding a royal court of justice under an oak near the chateau. The work was continued by his successor, Jean II of France β , and finished by Charles V of France β , who surrounded the donjon with a rectangular wall flanked by nine towers.
He also began to rebuild the chapel founded by Saint Louis. It was not finished until the 16th century. The forest was also the home of a community of monks of the order of the Minimes ; their presence is remembered by the name of the Lac des Minimes within the park. The new palace featured a pavilion for the King and another for the Queen, separated by a portico and by a wall connected by arcades to the medieval section of the chateau.
The donjon had been transformed into prison in the 15th century. In the 18th century Louis XV β opened the park to the public, excepting servants in livery. He had hundreds of trees planted and laid out long straight alleys through the forest in the form of intersecting stars. In he constructed a pyramid-shaped monument to mark the meeting point of the two main alleys, which can still be seen. Beginning in , large parts of the Bois de Vincennes were turned into a military training ground.
