Travel Guide Creteil

Créteil is a city whose past goes back to prehistoric times, as evidenced by several discoveries on its territory. But the first written traces mentioning Créteil go back to the Merovingians with Vicus Cristolium, a toponym referring either in Gallic language to "clearing" for crist and "crest" or to crist in reference to the early Christianization of the place. In the Middle Ages, its territory depended on ecclesiastical lordships where a village was established around the church built between the 11th and 13th centuries. In the course of time, it became a village which was transformed into a town in the 19th century with the industrialization. From the 1920s onwards, several new residential areas appeared. When the department of Val-de-Marne was created in 1968, Créteil became a prefecture. Today, it is home to the Henri Mondor hospital, as well as an outdoor leisure center located on the edge of a 40-hectare artificial lake, the result of the filling in of an old quarry, whose initial function was to hold back water in case of flooding, but which the city has admirably developed. You will find there a very interesting architectural heritage : Saint-Christophe church of the XIIth and XIIIth centuries with its crypt of the VIIIth century containing the relics of the saints Agoard and Agilbert ; its dovecote of the XIVth century. classified as a historical monument and the largest in the Ile-de-France region; the 19th century Château des Mèches; its Neolithic polisher, a block of more than two tons of sandstone used to sharpen stones; its 1974 monument to the Resistance and the Deportation..