Travel Guide Melun

As a strategic point between the county of Champagne and the fragile royal domain, Melun held a position of extreme importance in the past. As early as the 10th century, the Capetians had the royal castle built at the tip of Saint-Etienne Island. A very popular residence for the kings of France, it fell into disuse in the 16th century. Dismantled little by little, it was completely destroyed in the 19th century. However, it was not long before Melun became the capital of France instead of Paris. Famous people have stayed in the city, including Abelard, Jacques Amyot, humanist and great translator of ancient texts, whose statue can be seen in front of the city hall, the sculptor Michel-Henri Chapu... It is also in front of the city hall that Louis Pasteur publicly confirmed the experiment on the anthrax vaccination of sheep. Today, as the prefecture of the Seine-et-Marne, Melun is a city with two faces. Close to the extensions of the new towns and the large cereal crops to the north, it has kept all its charm of a rural town on the edge of the Fontainebleau forest to the south. In recent years, innovative buildings have been constructed, such as the courthouse and the Astrolabe media library next to the University of Law, on the site of the old castle. Nearby, the new river port of the Reine Blanche, inaugurated in 2007, completes the revival of these places which were at the origin of the city.