When asked to create a Paris itinerary and touring plans for individual travelers, I respond with questions:

What are your interests, hobbies and ages? Have you been to Paris before? Where are you staying? Are you in decent walking shape or have any mobility issues? Do you speak much French? Do you have any dietary restrictions? Do you drink wine? Will you want for shopping (for anything in particular?) or simply stop into boutiques if anything strikes your fancy along the way? Do you have a sense of how much guided time you’d like? What are you looking to get out of your stay in Paris?

Altogether, the answers provide me with information that ensures not only that that my clients won’t be over-walked or over-museumed, under-shopped and under-wined. They also allow me to imagine creative ways to enable them to visit sights, explore neighborhoods, understand history, experience culture, and satisfy their hunger and thirst in ways that are meaningful, rewarding and enjoyable to them.

Many clients will give cursory responses to my questions then cut to the chase, saying:
– We’re not museum people but want to see highlights (definitely Notre-Dame and the Eiffel Tower), or
– We like learning history and seeing different monuments and architecture (and we want good pastries, of course) but want to keep it relaxed, or
– Here’s the list of what my 18-year-old daughter/granddaughter wants to do.

The most common response, however, goes something like this:

We want to visit the main sights without having to wait in line. We don’t mind touring on our own but would like some guidance. We like walking but also want to take breaks. We want local food experiences but don’t need anything fancy. We want to try great pastries, and we are wine drinkers, in moderation. Can you help us?

I certainly can!

If you identify with that request, here’s my nearly personalized itinerary for you, including a selection of major sights, varied neighborhoods, easy-going bistros and brasseries and bars, and GPS-guided audio tours to steer you as you go.

Day 1: Feel the Pulse of the Historical Heart of the City then Stroll Along the Champs-Elysées

Morning
Arrive at Notre-Dame Cathedral by 9:30am (or in any case no later than 10am) to enter with little wait (entrance is free, and stop panicking about a timed reservation!) then walk the length of the City Island on which it stands, past the former royal palace, through charming Place Dauphine, and to the sublime river views as you cross the Pont Neuf (the New Bridge). Next bridge upstream, set out on an essential visit of the central Right Bank with my VoiceMap audio tour Exploring Paris of Dreams and Nightmares: The Dark Side of the City of Light.

Lunch
As you follow that audio tour, sample Paris from any of the many cafés, bakeries and other tempting and tasty eateries along the route. (You can pause the tour at any time.) Or wait until the end of the tour for lunch. Here are three welcoming options within a several blocks of the tour’s endpoint: the uber-traditional, easy-going Bistrot des Halles, the cozy and historic brasserie Le Zimmer, and the upbeat wine restaurant Le Robe et Le Palais.

Afternoon
Stroll the full-length of the Avenue des Champs-Elysées—including visits to the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais and perhaps several shops along the avenue—accompanied by my audio tour The Champs-Elysées: from Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe. At tour’s end, climb the Arc de Triomphe for a sweeping view over Paris (ideally with a pre-purchased, timed ticket or Paris Museum Pass). Then metro over to Trocadero for a fabulous view of the Eiffel Tower.

Evening
Head to a lively neighborhood to raise a glass or two at the joyfully old-fashion and inexpensive wine bar Le Baron Rouge. Prefer a beer? Fishtail around the corner to the character-filled Troll Café. Then stay in the neighborhood spirit for dinner at one of the numerous eateries in the area. Consider L’Ami Pierre, if you dare, for a plunge into Paris bistro life by night or Jouvence for a neo-bistro experience. There are also plenty of pizzerias, cafés and other inexpensive eateries in the neighborhood.

Day 2: Linger on the Left Bank then Meander in Montmartre

Morning
Begin your explorations of the central Left Bank in the Latin Quarter, where student life meets the Parisian bourgeoisie on alluring streets. Peek in at the food shops and stands at Maubert-Mutualité to get a sense of neighborhood market life. Visit the tomb of Saint Genevieive in the beautiful Saint Etienne du Mont Church. Take in the imposing and important Pantheon (avoid the line with an advance ticket or a Paris Museum Pass). Then leave the city streets to take an enchanting stroll with my audio tour of The Left Bank’s Most Elegant Park: Exploring the Luxembourg Garden so as to take part in the lifestyle of the Left Bank that is the Luxembourg Garden.

Lunch
Sample excellent French produce, cheese and more at the Saint Germain Market and nearby bakeries (Maison Mulot, Secco) and pastry shops (Arnaud Larher, Pierre Hermes). Or saddle up for wine and light snacks (call them tapas if you like) at Avant Comptoir du Marché.

Afternoon
Complete your visit of the central Left Bank with a walk through the Saint Germain Quarter, the chic, charming and boutiquey neighborhood that thrives at the heart of Parisian café society. Then head to Montmartre, starting at the metro station Abbesses or Anvers, to climb the hiil to Sacré Coeur before taking a well-earned seat for a drink at the hill’s historic eatery-drinker La Bonne Franquette. Then wind your way down along Rue Lepic all the way to the Moulin Rouge.

Evening
Stay within the atmosphere of Montmartre with dinner at La Mascotte Montmartre for fresh fish and seafood and other fine brasserie fare.

Day 3: Meet Mona at the Louvre, The Thinker at the Rodin, Napoleon at the Invalides, and peek in at luxury boutiques in between

Morning
View Mona and more at the Louvre Museum (get a timed reservation for 10am at the latest and brace for the crowds), then air your mind from your heady art history experience with a noble garden walk with my audio tour The Tuileries Garden: The Royal Walk from the Louvre to the Champs-Elysées.

Lunch
Keep it simple and full of character for lunch at Le Petit Vendôme, a busy bistro where where Parisian joie-de-vivre meets tourist joy-of-travel.

Afternoon
Before and after lunch, go window-shopping in the lap of luxury on Rue Saint Honoré and Place Vendôme. Then head over to the Rodin Museum for an easy-going, sculpture-spotted stroll in the park, along with a coffee stop in its garden café. Enter the museum itself, if in the mood, for a thorough view of Rodin’s work. Then visit Napoleon’s Tomb nearby and, if so inclined, the medieval armor portion and more of the adjacent Army Museum.

Evening
Discover casual, modern, moderately-priced Parisian gastronomy in a neighborhood not yet visited above. Here are some suggestions: L’Oyat, L’Escuella, Aux 2K, Caillebotte, Petit Boutary. Then augment the evening at a jazz club such New Morning, Sunset/Sunside, Duc des Lombards, Caveau de la Huchette.

Be sure to check opening times for all of the suggestions above.

Looking for an even more customized itinerary and personalized touring? Contact me directly for travel therapy by phone and more.

© 2025, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Three Days in Paris: Your Nearly Personalized Itinerary appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

On the one hand, I have a natural aversion to recommending virtual reality tours for travelers. After all, we travel to be someplace, not virtually but actually. On the other hand, virtual reality tours, in addition to being entertaining, can be informative and insightful when there’s a historical or otherwise important unseen component to complement and enhance a visit to the real deal.

Virtual historical reality tours will become increasingly immersive, seamless and sensorial in the years ahead. As they stand, aside from their entertainment value, do they help travelers on site understand and further appreciate what they’ve come to see?

Curious about the added value of the virtual historical reality tours now available within actual sight of three major monuments in Paris, Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Eiffel Tower, and the Louvre I took a test run of their respective magic goggles on site. For Notre-Dame that meant in a subterranean zone one hundred yards in front of the cathedral. For the Eiffel Tower that meant during a stroll along the Champs de Mars, the park that leads to the tower on Paris’s Right Bank. For the Louvre that meant a walk from one end of its courtyard to the other.

All three proved to be both informative, entertaining and recommendable as complements to actual visits inside of these important monuments.

Eternal Notre-Dame: Amaclio Productions’ virtual reality tour of Notre-Dame Cathedral

Notre-Dame is currently inaccessible to the general public, as it has been since the fire of 2019 destroyed its roof and steeple. The cathedral is scheduled to reopen in December 2024, though under what conditions is not yet known. The virtual reality tour, reached from an underground entrance at the far end of the square in front of the cathedral, is currently programmed to end on September 30, 2025.

Following along with a handsome, well-spoken electronic guide (choose your language), the virtual reality tour of Notre-Dame leads visitors to the doors of the cathedral then inside, through various steps of the building’s medieval construction, 19th-century restoration, and current rehabilitation. It’s an extensive tour. In 45 minutes, while walking and turning in all directions, visitors get a close-up view of the structure inside and out, from various heights, while encountering works and learning about its elements in stone, glass and wood. Visitors “ride” a platform to the upper reaches of the cathedral to stand near a rose window and then higher to visit “the forest” of oak rafters and beams that form the wooden framework, those elements that burned during the fire of 2019. Details are also given about medieval Christianity and the structure’s theological underpinnings. All is made understandable to a wide public.

Altogether, this is an excellent tour that’s as visually compelling as it is informative. And complementing the virtual tour, visitors then visit at their own pace an exhibition about the current renovation and reconstruction. Objects and models along with explanatory panels and interviews in French and in English provide visitors with a clearer understanding of elements touched on during the virtual tour: recreating the wooden framework of the forest, restoring stained glass, the grand organ and the bells, replacing stone vaulting and sculptural elements, and conducting research.

The combination of the virtual reality tour and the exhibition afterwards make for an exceptional and entertaining introduction to the cathedral for those with little prior understanding of the construction and current restoration of the cathedral and is equally fascinating for those already acquainted with Our Lady of Paris. The virtual tour last 45-minutes, to which you need to add departure time and time to visit the post-tour exhibition, so count 70-90 minutes altogether.

I recommend getting a good look at the façade of Notre-Dame and a side view as well before taking the virtual reality tour. Then, after the virtual tour and exhibition, now armed with a deeper appreciation and understanding of the architectural and artistic glory of the cathedral, reconsider the actual façade, take a walk around the full perimeter of the building, and, of course, enter to admire the Notre-Dame’s dazzling restoration and luminous interior.

Practical considerations

There’s a cost to virtual reality tours that may be prohibitive to some. The experience at Eternal Notre-Dame costs 30€99 for adults and 20€99 for children under 17, though on certain days and times adults pay the children price, particularly off season.

Groups of up to six people set off together at the same time, with individual headsets speaking in your chosen language. Each person wears a headset and carries a backpack containing what is essentially a laptop computer while walking along the underground maze. Precise instructions and indications keep you moving and prevent you from bumping into other visitors. The glasses/headset adjust well and the tour is captivating enough that it’s easy to forget the equipment and enjoy the walk. However, the backpack is bit cumbersome, and for anyone with a bad back, carrying it for 45 minutes may be uncomfortable.

Brief pauses between scenes within the virtual universe can be momentarily confusing, but the lit path and your virtual guide will return soon enough to point you in the right direction as you walk.

The minimum recommended age is 11, though children as young as 8 may be admitted. However, given the weight of the backpack and the need to precisely follow lit directional indications so as to avoid bumping into walls and, especially, other visitors, this virtual reality tour may not be appropriate for a small and fidgety preteen. Or you can hold your child’s hand as guidance.

For further information and reservations see Eternal Notre-Dame.

Eternal Notre-Dame was produced by Amaclio Productions, a company that has developed other virtual reality and sound and light shows in France, including at the Invalides in Paris, the Cité de l’Histore at La Défense (Eternal Notre-Dame is also available at that site), Mont Saint Michel, and the Carrousel of Saumur.

Viality Tour’s virtual reality and actual walking tour near the Eiffel Tower and in the courtyard of the Louvre

While Viality Tour’s virtual reality tours of the Eiffel Tower and the courtyards of the Louvre don’t have the same high production value as Amaclio’s well-financed Notre-Dame tour, what makes it worthwhile is that these tour has its iconic monuments in plain view and is given by actual human guides, and delightful ones at that. The tour was developed by the young start-up team of Vladina Flaquière and Michel Dang. One or the other may be your guide.

The Eiffel Tower: The goggle-wearing virtual portion of the tour takes users through the construction of the Eiffel Tower from 1887 to 1889 and into the Universal Exposition of 1889 for which it was built. Much of the exposition sprawled along the Champs de Mars, the very park where you’ll be walking. The Champs de Mars formerly served as the parade grounds for the nearby Military Academy (Ecole Militaire).

Vladina or Michel or an assistant rather than an avatar is your actual guide. Speaking French or English depending on the scheduled or private group, your guide explains what you see in the goggles as you stand and turn in 360 degrees. You do not walk while wearing the goggles. Instead, between virtual scenes, you then remove the goggles and approach closer and closer to the actual tower. During that time, the tour continues with the actual Eiffel Tower in view as your guide provides further details about what you see today and answers any questions you may have. So this is both a virtual and an actual tour, lasting about 75 minutes, accompanied by your affable guide and with numerous photo ops along the way.

Vladina has worked as a licensed guide at various chateaux in Brittany, the Loire Valley and Versailles, before teaming with Michel to develop Viality Tour. She continues to guide at Versailles. Michel, the equally affable tech half of the team, holds a masters in marketing and worked as a junior product marketing manager with Netgear before he and Vladina partnered to create Viality Tour. Michel does the computer modeling with the assistance of a graphic designer as well as the team’s communications work.

With or without actually going up in the tower, this is an excellent introduction to it. If unwilling to deal with the tickets, lines and crowded elevators, the Viality Tour—both its virtual and actual realities—can serve as your informative visit in and of itself.

If interested in the Viality Tour and also planning to go up the tower, try to sync the two by scheduling the Viality Tour so that it ends 15-30 minutes before the timed ticket you’ve purchased (well) in advance to go up. That will allow for a nice segue from one to the other while allowing you time to go through the security line at the tower. (Viality Tour will not purchase your Eiffel Tower ticket.)

The courtyards of the Louvre: As much as I appreciated Viality’s Eiffel Tower tour, I found their Louvre tour even more interesting and informative. Visitors to the museum are typically unaware of the Louvre’s evolution over the past 800 years from fortress to castle to palace to museum, and even less aware that it was once connected to another palace, the Tuileries Palace. On an outdoor walk with several virtual reality stops from the far eastern end of the Louvre to nearly its far western end, this tour guides visitors through various eras of the construction of the Louvre and the Tuileries, up until 1871, when the latter was set ablaze by the Paris Commune. You’ll near forget the hundreds of people queuing up for the museum and milling about… until the end when you join them.

You don’t have to join them just yet, however, since the Viality Louvre tour make for a nice complement to the audio-guide that I’ve created to the Tuileries Garden for the VoiceMap app, The Tuileries Garden: The Royal Walk from the Louvre to the Champs-Elysées. The Viality Tour ends about where mine starts, with minimal overlap.

The Eiffel Tower tour lasts about 75 minutes. The Louvre tour last 10-15 minutes longer. Each costs 29€ for adults and 19€ for children 8 to 17. Children under 8 are not accepted. Groups can consist of up to 10 people.

For further information and for the tour schedule see the Viality Tour website. Though the indicated language of the tour may be French, it may also be conducted in English, so inquire about that possibility when reserving. With sufficient advance planning, privatization for your own group may be possible upon request.

Vladina and Michel plan to extend the Viality Tour concept to other major monuments of the city over the coming years.

© 2024, 2025 Gary Lee Kraut

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Seventy-five years after the Liberation of France, a visit to the D-Day Landing Beaches and the WWII memorials, museums and cemeteries of Normandy remains high on the wish-list of Americans and other international travelers to France. Yet few are aware of the French role in the Liberation of Paris.

A new, free, highly informative museum, partially located in an air raid shelter used by the Resistance during the liberation of the capital, provides insights into the history of Paris and Parisians during the Second World War.

The Liberation of Paris

By mid-August 1944, as the Allies were breaking out from Normandy and simultaneously gaining a foothold in the south of France, General Charles de Gaulle, who had led the Free French in exile, disagreed with the Allies as to the urgency of liberating Paris. For the Americans and allies, Berlin was the prime objective in the effort to defeat Nazi Germany. Paris, of little strategic value, could be bypassed on route to the German capital. But for de Gaulle, liberating Paris was essential to the country’s future unification and independence, and that required securing military and political French control of the capital sooner rather than later.

The issue was soon forced. Strikes had formed on August 10, growing to a general strike on August 18, and the insurrection began the following day. Skirmishes broke out and barricades were set up as a scrappy, lightly-armed Resistance fighters, policemen and civilians emerged from the shadows in an attempt to take on some 20,000 German soldiers and 50 tanks. On August 22 General Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, gave permission to the French 2nd Armored Division, commanded by Free French General Leclerc, supported by the American 4th Infantry Division, to enter the city.

On the evening of August 24, Leclerc’s men entered Paris from the south and southwest, including along the road that would later be renamed Avenue du Général Leclerc. In the afternoon of August 25, German military governor General Dietrich von Choltitz, aware of the futility of fighting for control of the city in the face of advancing armies and unwilling to follow Hitler’s orders to leave the city in ruin, surrendered German forces in the Paris region. After four years of German occupation, the capital was free again.

De Gaulle entered Paris that afternoon. He proclaimed at City Hall the continuity of the French Republic and the restoration of Paris’s lost nobility with a phrase famous in the capital to this day: “Paris! Paris outragé! Paris brisé! Paris martyrisé! Mais Paris libéré!” (Paris! Paris outraged! Paris broken! Paris martyred! But Paris liberated!) He went on to say that Paris was “liberated by itself, liberated by its people with the help of the French armies, with the support and the assistance of all of France…” with little mention of Allied efforts other than to acknowledge “the help of our dear and admirable allies.”

Had Paris been strategically important to the Allies and the Germans, there would have been far greater material damage to the city in an effort to dislodge the occupying forces, so, thankfully, little direct help was necessary from those “dear and admirable allies.” The museum gives them more due, yet this is appropriately and above all a French affair, and as such it offers foreign visitors insights into the German occupation, the French Resistance (and collaboration), the liberation of the capital and several of the homegrown heroes of the war.

General Leclerc and Jean Moulin

Located in the 14th arrondissement, across the street from the entrance to the Catacombs at Place Denfert-Rochereau, the museum partially occupies an underground air raid shelter that was used by Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy in August 1944 as a command post to direct the Paris Resistance during its uprising. (The segment of avenue in front of the museum bears his name.) The command post presents period newsreels along with displays about its functioning during the uprising, including the critical role played by Rol-Tanguy’s wife Cécile.

The museum, actually three related museums in one—it’s full name is the Museum of the Liberation of Paris/ General Leclerc Museum / Jean Moulin Museum—highlights the roles of General Leclerc and resistance organizer Jean Moulin, two French heroes from very different backgrounds who helped liberate France from within and without.

When France fell to the Germans in June 1940, General Leclerc, a military officer from a Catholic aristocratic background, escaped the country and over the next three years helped assemble and lead Free French forces in Africa, North Africa and Europe. Born Philippe de Hauteclocque, he changed his name to Leclerc to protect his family in France from reprisals. He eventually assumed command of the 2nd Armored Division, integrated into Patton’s Third Army.

Jean Moulin, meanwhile, was a Socialist and a rising prewar civil servant, the youngest prefect in France at the time of his nomination. After the fall of France, Moulin refused to become a pawn for the German occupation and focused on coordinating General de Gaulle’s activities and those of various Resistance groups within France. His work required clandestine travel (including a hazardous nighttime parachute jump) during trips back from London to meet with de Gaulle. Under constant threat of detection by the Germans, he negotiated with and unified most groups of the French Resistance in a single structure, becoming the first president of the National Council of Resistance in the spring of 1943. In June, several weeks after the council’s first official meeting, Moulin was arrested. He was tortured by the Germans—notably by Klaus Barbie, the “Butcher of Lyon”—and died of his wounds on July 8.

Visiting the museum

While the museum exhibits are heavy on archival material (letters, government decrees, posters, etc.), there are poignant historical objects, such as Moulin’s matchbox for concealing microfilm, Leclerc’s desert uniforms and a graffiti fragment from a Jewish family deported from Paris’s Drancy transit camp.

The museum also offers a variety of multimedia exhibits and interactive maps which show the location of key buildings requisitioned by Germans during the Occupation, Resistance strongholds and sites of fighting during the Liberation. At Barbès metro station, for example, a Resistance commando team, led by Colonel Fabien (after whom another metro station on line 2 is named) assassinated a German soldier in the summer 1941. The Hotel Lutetia housed the Abwehr, the German counterintelligence service, during the Occupation and then at war’s end was a processing site for the few returning French who survived German concentration camps.

Sections of the museum are punctuated by short films (all with English subtitles) presenting visions of life in Paris during the war, from pro-German propaganda newsreels condemning Allied bombing raids to instructions for women how to paint their legs in the absence of silk stockings. The final sections include extensive footage of outgunned Paris Resistance fighters battling the German Army and of de Gaulle’s famous Liberation speech (“Paris outraged!…”).

Spartan grey walls and a realistic soundscape give the interior the sound and feel of a military bunker. The subterranean command post resounds with the clack of invisible typewriters, ringing telephones and the whine of an air raid siren. As the exhibits progress to the darkest period of the war for Paris, the visitor descends into the basement of the building, and later, after the Liberation story, one emerges into a sunlit atrium adorned with French flags and offering views of the neighborhood where Leclerc’s American M4 Sherman tanks rolled to the center.

Other wartime memories in Paris

The Liberation Museum adds an important voice to the city’s extensive historical narrative of World War II. Elsewhere in Paris, memories of the Second World War can be viewed from other angles at the Army Museum at Les Invalides (sections devoted to de Gaulle, to WWII, and to the Order of the Liberation); at the Shoah Memorial in the Marais; at the Deportation Memorial behind Notre-Dame; on plaques commemorating Resistance fighters and deported Jewish school children, and in the form of pockmarks from fighting during the Liberation of Paris.

Evidence of damage can be seen on the southeastern corner of Luxembourg Palace (the Senate building), on the southeastern corner of the Palais de Justice (the central courthouse on Ile de la Cité) and on the wall of the Tuileries next to the Place de la Concorde, as well as elsewhere.

The material damage in Paris was limited during the war, but the city’s liberation brought about the death of 1000 resistance fighters, 156 soldiers of the 2nd Armored Division, 588 civilians and 3200 Germans, along with thousands of wounded.

Since 1945 the Cross of the Liberation, an order created by General de Gaulle, has been a part of the arms of the City of Paris.

Post-museum R&R

The museum draws visitors into its subjects so well that the curious traveler could end up spending over an hour and a half here (while the rest of the family visits the Catacombs?) before emerging to contemporary café life in liberated Paris. Numerous cafés are right nearby, but consider heading away from the bustle to a stroll and a sit one block away on Rue Daguerre, the neighborhood’s wonderful pedestrian food market street.

Practical information

Museum of the Liberation of Paris/ General Leclerc Museum/ Jean Moulin Museum
Place Denfert-Rochereau, 75014 Paris. Metro Denfert-Rochereau.
Open Tuesday to Sunday, 10AM to 6PM. No entrance possible after 5:15PM.

Tickets are free for the permanent exhibition, where displays present texts in English as well as French. The free ticket gains entrance to the command post in the air raid shelter, however only a limited number of people are allowed into the post at any one time, so visitors should request a timed reservation (not available online) to visit it as soon as they enter the museum in the hopes that tickets remain for the following hour.

The 100 steps down to the command post are steep, so a visit to that part of the museum could be difficult for visitors with small children or limited mobility. For those unable to access the command post, a virtual tour can be viewed on tablets available at the reception desk.

© 2019, France Revisited

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Two new Paris museums

The museumscape of Paris was enriched this summer with two informative new museums this summer. While their themes may not be attention-grabbing on first glance they’re both capable of drawing visitors into the subject matter at hand.
– Citéco, a delightfully geeky and architecturally quirky museum about the economy, and
– the Liberation of Paris Museum, across the street from the Catacombs.

Timed tickets for the crowded Louvre

Due to excessive crowds, timed entry reservations are now possible and recommended to visit the Louvre, including for visitors with the Paris Museum Pass. Timed reservations are necessary for the major Leonardo da Vinci retrospective, Oct. 24-Feb. 24, marking the 500th anniversary of his death.

Degas at the Orsay

The Orsay (which English-speakers often mistakenly call the D’Orsay) recently opened a newly restored section of the museum allowing for more comfortable viewing, relatively speaking, of famous works by Van Gogh, Gaugin and others. The museum’s current temporary exhibition is Degas at the Opera, showing through January 19. The exhibition will be presented at the National Gallery of Art in Washington from March 1 to July 5 next year. Note for Degas fans: Michel Schulman, a Parisian American-French expert on Degas and other artists of that era, recently launched the digital critical catalogue of the artist’s work.

A Salute to Style at the Army Museum

Like a man in uniform? The Army Museum at the Invalides salutes military style in an exhibition from October 10 to January 26 that highlights the search for splendor from the 16th century to today by those seeking to display and legitimize military powers. The 200 pieces on display include armor, weaponry, saddlery, military haute-couture and more. The basic admission ticket to the museum allows entrance to the exhibition.

Other exhibitions in Paris

Toulouse Lautrec: Resolutely Modern, a retrospective at the Grand Palais, Oct. 9-Jan. 27.
Greco retrospective at the Grand Palais, Oct. 16-Feb.10.
Francis Bacon at the Pompidou Center, until January 20.
The Golden Age of English Painting, from Reynolds to Turner at the Luxembourg Museum, until February 20.
20 Years of Acquisition at the Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac Museum, until January 26. The museum, opened in 2006 just upriver from the Eiffel Tower, was created on the initiative of Jacques Chirac, former mayor of Paris and president of France, who passed away on September 26.
Tolkien, Journey to Middle-Earth at the BNF-François Mitterand (the National Library), Oct. 22-Feb. 16. The exhibition includes objects on loan from the Tolkien family, Bodleian Library (Oxford) and the Marquette University Libraries (Milwaukee), as well as four tapestries based on Tolkien’s work and recently woven in Aubusson.
The Golden Legend, Buddha at the Guimet Museum, an exhibition about the life of Buddha and the spread of Buddhism in Asia, Nov. 4.

Marshmallow Tulips near the Champs-Elysées

Paris may be an artful city but some works miss their mark, for example the newly installed Bouquet of Tulips by Jeff Koons, an American gift to Paris. Read and see here and find out who spoke better French at the inauguration, the U.S. ambassador appointed by Obama or by Trump.

Major renovations

The National Martime Museum, Paris

Unbeknownst to most visitors who come to admire the grand view of the Eiffel Tower from across the river at Trocadero, one wing of the building behind them—the Palais de Chaillot—is a shell of what is currently the largest museum project in France. A budget of €86-million ($94-million) has been earmarked for a major makeover of the Musée National de la Marine (National Maritime Museum) which will present through history, art and technology France’s maritime and naval ambitions over the centuries. Closed since 2017, it is slated to reopen in 2022 within the Palais de Chaillot, where it has been housed since 1937. During that time, the four portside branches of the National Maritime Museum remain open: in Brest, Rochefort, Port-Louis and Toulon.

The Maritime Museum dates its origins to a presentation of ship models in the Louvre in the 18th century, at the time when the Louvre was a royal palace. The U.K. was then France’s great rival on the high seas, and an irony of history now has a British team, Casson Mann, designing the new museography. Hopefully they’ll do a better job than they did at the Cité du Vin in Bordeaux. The team is also responsible for the presentation at the Cité Internationale de la Gastronomie that will open this month in Lyon.

An American in Paris at the Châtelet Theater

The Châtelet Theater, the city-owned imperial theater from the time of Napoleon III, inaugurated in 1862, reopened in September after major restoration and is once again presenting dance and musical comedy of the kind that can appeal to both French and international audiences. An American in Paris will be performed here from Nov. 28 to Jan. 1.

Beyond Paris

Game of Thrones meets William the Conqueror in Bayeux, Normandy

Sometimes a push from pop culture is needed to get travelers interested in history, art and artefacts, e.g. The Da Vinci Code (2003) leading visitors to Saint Sulpice Church in Paris or The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831, English version 1833) bringing visitors to the Cathedral of Paris. Now it’s the turn of the 285-foot- / 8-season-long Game of Thrones Tapestry to lead visitors in Bayeux to examine the Bayeux Tapestry, the 940-year-old embroidery that recounts the Norman Conquest of England by William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy. Or vice versa.

Narratively and stylistically inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry, the GoT Tapestry was woven in Northern Ireland on a jacquard loom with Irish linen and highlighted with embroidery. It’s on display near the Cathedral of Bayeux, up the street from the Bayeux Tapestry, until Dec. 31 (closed Mon. and Tues.).

Immigration to the Coalfields of the North

Way north toward the Belgium border, in the coalfield of Lewarde (near Douai), the Centre Historique Minier, which tells about three centuries of coal mining in the region, is currently presenting, until Dec. 31, an exhibition about immigration to the region between 1919 and 1939. That’s the period between the First and Second World Wars when France, its manpower and northern regions having suffered heavily during the Great War, welcomed 200,000 Polish immigrants, along with Italian and Czechoslovakian immigrants, to the mining basin of Nord-Pas de Calais to assist in reconstruction and coal mining.

© 2019, Gary Lee Kraut

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For fans of architecture in both its purest and kitschiest forms the fun begins with the exterior façade. In 1878, richissime banker Emile Gaillard hired up-and-coming architect Jules Février to build a Parisian mansion modeled on the late 15th-century features of the Château de Blois in the Loire Valley. The Monceau quarter was favored terrain of the banking class at the time—the Rothschilds, the Camondos, the Perrières and others also built mansions in the area—and is still home to many golden boys and girls.

Ironically, the Hôtel Gaillard is a picture-perfect illustration of a real estate fiasco in fiscal terms: It took six years and 11 million francs to build but the Banque de France was able to scoop it up in 1919 for a mere two million. That change of hands merely ratcheted up the site’s eclectic charm since the Banque de France augmented the already over-the-top décor with the Art Nouveau and Art Deco elements popular in its day. However, for some delightfully curious reason, the directors went all medieval when they decided to protect the safety deposit vault with a moat.

Yes, they dug an actual moat and filled it with water. (BTW, not a single break-in before the bank closed its door to private customers in 2006.) Today’s visitors can walk over the (now-tiled) drawbridge that led over the moat to the coffers.

While the museum’s “function’ is devoted to economics, it’s not macro and micro economics in its stuffiest, textbook form.

Citéco is all about the money: how it’s made, lost, spent, printed, squandered, stolen or saved. All exhibits are well translated in English and Spanish.

Displays showcase currency made from silver, gold, bone seashells, and intricately braided raffia. A home-made, home-grown toaster constructed by British artist Thomas Thwaites (nine months to assemble; nine seconds to melt down) illustrates the need to trade in both skills and materials.

Interactive exhibits make economics even more personal. A bank-balance game flashes a monthly salary, then fast-forwards through possible expenses. Pull a lever to evade the exorbitant 150 € cable/internet charge and the screen politely reminds you that you signed a monthly contract.

The 9-player boardroom game is a lesson in negotiation. Visitors can explore the domino theory with real dominoes, put a pair of jeans through a TSA-style radar check to trace its manufacture and materials, and even design their own paper money.

Don’t worry if you get a little seasick from the walk-in exhibit of the sub-prime crisis. It was specifically designed to make spectators feel queasy. Recover (or not?) by sitting in on an imaginary conversation with John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman.

Citéco: La Cité de l’Economie. 1 Place du Général Catroux, 17th arr. Metro Monceau or Malesherbes. Open Tuesday to Friday from 10 am to 6 pm; Saturday until 7 pm. Tickets: 12 € (general admission); 9 € (ages 18 – 25); 6 € (age 6 – 17); under 6 free. Happy Hour: 6 € from 4:30 pm Monday through Friday (except holidays); 8 € on the first Thursday of each month from 7 to 10 pm.

© 2019, Corinne LaBalme

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They pre-date dinosaurs. There are thousands of species (both herbivore and carnivore). And almost all of them pack a powerful sting.

Jellyfish (méduses in French) are the ickiest of all marine life when they’re sharing your swimming space but astonishingly beautiful when safely viewed from the other side of a thick glass wall.

On January 16, 2019, the Aquarium de Paris, located in the Trocadéro gardens, just across the river from the Eiffel Tower, opened the first (and only) jellyfish zoo in Europe.

Twenty-four back-lit black tanks showcase 45 varieties of these brainless invertebrates as they dance through the water, buffeted by gentle artificial currents in their high-tech tanks. (Jellyfish, like sharks, expire quickly when not in motion.)

Outside of the zoo environment, jellyfish function like reverse ecological canaries in the coal mine. Whenever there’s a population explosion, it means something’s gone very wrong at the waterfront. In short, anything that dooms sea bass and coral reefs is pure ambrosia for jellyfish.

Marine biologist Jacqueline Goy, a member of the Aquarium’s scientific council, notes that the Black Sea has already become a “jellyfish soup” and warns that the “gélification” of our oceans is a clear and present danger.

The Médusarium, set up to educate visitors about climate change while highlighting the beauty of ocean fauna, is akin to a marine jewel box. Some of these diaphanous creatures even appear to be sprinkled with shiny blue sequins. Watching these iridescent creatures perform their graceful water ballet is a mesmerizing, nearly hypnotic, experience.

A little too peaceful? Then plan your visit around 2:45 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday when the aquarium’s fifty hungry sharks have their late-lunch feeding frenzy. Altogether, there are 7,500 ocean animals on view, 700 colonies of coral, and a pool where venerable Koï carp can petted and caressed.

L’Aquarium de Paris. 5 avenue Albert de Mun, 16th arr. Metro Trocadéro or Iéna. Open daily from 10 am to 7 pm; last tickets sold at 6 pm. Tickets: 20,50 € (general admission); 16€ (13-17 years and over 60 years); 13€ (3-12 years): under 3 free.

© 2019, Corinne LaBalme

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When it fully reopens at the end of 2020 upon completion of a 5-year restoration and reconfiguration project, the Cluny Museum will regain its place among Europe’s premier museums of medieval art and among Paris’s major museums. Already, the project is bearing fruit in the form of two concurrent exhibitions that explore some of the mysteries of medieval art and culture: Magical Unicorns (until Feb. 25, 2019) and Birth of Gothic Sculpture (until Jan. 21, 2019).

These exhibitions, along with a room presenting ivory, gold and enamel masterpieces from the permanent collection, display objects of beauty, intricacy and historical significance. Though their significance may initially be lost on the uninformed visitor, the visitor is quickly drawn in these exhibitions by the objects themselves and with the aid of explanatory panels are written in English as well as in French.

Magical Unicorns

While Birth of Gothic Sculpture is a scholarly exhibit, Magical Uniforms is easily accessible to the entire family. Who isn’t fascinated by the unicorn?—Not of the pink, star-eyed, Walmart kind but of the mysterious, fantastic, legendary kind that flourished in art and in emblems at the end of the Middle Ages.

The Cluny Museum’s most famous inhabitants are a lady and a unicorn, so it’s only natural that the first portion of the museum to be opened to the public during the restoration project is their habitat of six tapestries collectively known as the Lady and the Unicorn (La Dame à la licorne).

“Magical Unicorns,” the title of the little exhibition that precedes the six tapestries, may be redundant given the mysterious nature of this creature with the long spiraling horn. The unicorn has throughout history given rise to myths and fantasies, the exhibition presents various ways in which artists have represented this legendary creature in illuminated manuscripts, engraved works, sculptures and tapestries.

In some it is a magical animal whose horn could detect poisons and purify liquids. In others it symbolizes chastity and innocence. Several illuminated manuscripts evoke the traditional belief that unicorns could only be approached by virgin maidens. Yet other works represent the unicorn as powerful, aggressive or even malevolent. At the time, people were convinced of the creature’s existence; there were tales of travelers who claimed to have glimpsed the unicorn in the Orient. Unicorn fever spread throughout France in the late Middle Ages. Towns and powerful lords placed the unicorn within their emblems and coats of arms as a sign of their own magnificence. The Catholic Church took a liking to its symbol of purity and, when tamed by a young girl, of chastity, allowing the unicorn to appear in images with the Virgin Mary.

The holy of holies at the Cluny Museum, though, is the series of six tapestries known as The Lady and the Unicorn. The tapestries were woven around 1500, during the transitional period between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. There’s also a lion in each of the six, but the fabled unicorn is clearly the prosperous lady’s more intimate companion as she enjoys the five senses before setting aside her jewelry by her “own free will” (seul désir).

The Lady and the Unicorn had been all but forgotten when the six tapestries were rediscovered, in excellent condition, in the Château de Boussac in Creuse (central France) in 1841. The work’s beautiful feminine figures, the mystery surrounding its creation and the persistent presence of vegetation and familiar, wild or fantastical animals all captured the imagination. The myth of the existence of the unicorn had by then been debunked, but after 1882, when the Cluny Museum acquired the tapestries, the unicorn again became a source of inspiration.

In addition to presenting other examples of unicorns through the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, the exhibition shows how 19th- and 20th-century artists were inspired by these tapestries. A 5-minute video about the history of unicorns is shown alternatively in English and French.

The Birth of Gothic Sculpture, 1135-1150: Saint Denis, Paris, Chartres

Europe has a number of first-rate museums devoted to medieval art, but the Cluny Museum holds a special place regarding works from 1000 to 1500 since the architects and artists of the territory of what is France today were on the forefront of developments during the Romanesque (about 1000 to 1150) and Gothic (about 1150 to 1500) periods of art and architecture.

Those round numbers are naturally illusory since there was actually no direct passing of the artful baton in 1150 from the subsequently-named Romanesque to Gothic, just as there was no midnight hand-off from Gothic to Renaissance in France at the turn of the 16th century. Each of those three broad cultural eras—Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance—produced its own strains, evolutions and geographical adaptations.

In this exhibition, which runs until Jan. 7, 2019, the Cluny Museum takes a close look at the transition between the Romanesque and Gothic sculpture as seen through the interplay of three centers of creation between 1135 and 1150: Paris, Saint Denis, eight miles to the north, and Chartres, 60 miles to the southwest.

Enriched by the scientific contributions of the extensive restoration works conducted over recent years, starting with the western façade of Saint-Denis, the exhibition sheds new light on the earliest days of Gothic art and the explosion of its intricate carving.

No longer truly Romanesque, without yet being fully Gothic, the style that developed in Île-de-France (the Paris region and royal domain) and beyond between 1135 and 1150 has been puzzled together here as curators seek to present the wind of change and to follow the tracks of the notebooks of designs that circulated between construction sites.

Although Romanesque art continued to dominate in this period throughout most of Europe, in Île-de-France its supremacy was threatened during the 1140s. The construction sites of churches in Saint Denis, Paris and Chartres formed the cradle of a growing art that combined innovations as technical as they were stylistic and iconographic. Through emulation between builders, sculptors and sponsors, the first expression of Gothic sculpture was born and developed in the wake of a changing architectural style.

(The term Gothic itself wasn’t born until the 16th century as way for Italian architects to claim the superiority of their Renaissance creations over what they saw as barbarian, Goth-like works so at home in France. During much of their initial development, the arts and architecture of that era would mostly likely have be considered as simply French, since much—though certainly not all—of that development occurred within 100 miles of Paris, in every direction.)

Although we owe the invention of portals with column statues to sculptors working on the abbey church of Saint Denis, it was at Chartres cathedral that this model truly flourished, before adopting its most enduring expression, again at Saint-Denis, in the Valois portal. In the rivalry between these seats of power, the formation and propagation of new aesthetics played out in a complex intertwining of borrowings and departures. This new art found its origins in a quest for expressiveness which was achieved by the assertion of a style inspired by classical antiquity and marked by the art of the Meuse Valley around 1150. Bodies were given movement and came to life. They seemed to move.

The clear relationship between the engraved columns of the façade at Saint-Denis and a book known as “The Great Bible,” perhaps commissioned from Chartrian illuminators by Abbot Suger of Saint Denis, points in the direction of long-lost notebooks of designs. By bringing together sculptures, illuminations and stained glass panels, the exhibition shows their common sources of inspiration. More than just a simple juxtaposition of various repertoires, visitors will witness the birth of a hybrid art.

This is a scholarly exhibition that rewards an eye for detail. Adequate explanatory texts in English guide the visitor throughout, and audio- and visio-guides are available to further information.

The 130 works of art in the exhibition—column capitals, column statuary, etc.—come from reference collections of the Cluny Museum and the Louvre as well as various cathedrals, among them column statues from the Royal Portal of Chartres Cathedral. Several pieces are also on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.

Cluny Museum of the Middle Ages
28 rue du Sommerard, 5th arr., Paris.
Open daily except Tuesday 9AM-5:45PM. Closed Jan. 1, May 1, Dec. 25.
Metro Cluny-La-Sorbonne or Saint-Michel or Odéon.
Entrance: €9, includes entrance to the exhibitions.
The museum’s main portion, the late-medieval mansion of the Abbots of Cluny, is closed for renovation until late 2020. During that time, various exhibitions will be held in the frigidarium or cold pool, a remnant of the ancient Roman bath complex that stood on this site, while the Lady and the Unicorn and a selection of treasures from the permanent collection will also remain on display. Entrance outside of exhibition periods is 5€.

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You’ve looked up at the wedding cake basilica of Sacré Cœur. You’ve looked down at the grey rooftops of Paris. You’ve sidestepped a beggar. You’ve seen a guy standing motionless like a statue. You’ve seen the mosaic Jesus inside the church. You’ve dodged marauding portrait sketchers as you then walked to Place du Tertre. You’ve wondered how a piece of tourist art might look in your bathroom. Perhaps you’ve had coffee, ice cream, a beer or, god forbid, lunch on the square.

You’ve been there alright. But have you done that?

Certainly not. Butte (Hilltop) Montmartre, as it’s known to Parisians, concerns the entire surrounding hump of the hill, not just the crowd-pleasing hilltop chart-toppers.

In order to “do that” you might set off on a treasure hunt to find the following:
– the Love Wall,
– the Bateau-Lavoir, a maze of studios that was a hotbed of creativity in the early 1900s.
– the sculpture of the man who walked through walls, in honor of the writer Marcel Ayme,

– the vineyard,
– the cabaret Au Lapin Agile,
– the sculpture of the man who walked with his head in his hands, in honor of Saint Denis,
– the bust of the Dalida, an Egyptian-French singer who was a cross between Maria Callas, Judy Garland and Cher,

– two or three windmills,
– the monument to Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen, an artist, anarchist and cat-lover,
– the statue of the Chevalier de la Barre, a knight who was tortured then beheaded for blasphemy and became a symbol of the intolerance of a religious majority,
– and the bust of Francisque Poulbot, an illustrator of posters and other images featuring Parisians and particularly street kids, as well as one of the founders of the Republic of Montmartre.

There, I’ve just outlined many of the sights and characters you’d meet on my 3-hour Montmartre tour, minus the café, the bar and a church or two. But rather than take you on that tour in this article I wish to lead you directly to the location of the bust of Poulbot, the last on that list. Your treasure hunt ends here.

While all of the others on my list can be seen from streets and squares, you have to enter the garden at the Musée de Montmartre (the Montmartre Museum) in order to meet Pouilbot.

The Montmartre Museum is just 300 yards from Sacré Coeur and Place du Tertre yet it feels well off the beaten track. As it should since this is a connoisseur’s museum with a quiet garden café.

The museum’s permanent collection occupies a 17th-century building within a small park, just behind a zone of former studio-residences. Those studio-residences once hosted Auguste Renoir (he painted Dance at the Moulin de la Galette at this address), Suzanne Valadon, Émile Bernard and other artists from the heydays of the Montmartre art scene.

The museum pays homage to the artists associated with Montmartre from 1870 to 1914 (i.e. much of the period covered by the Orsay Museum) and to life in the cafés and cabarets during that time.

In the permanent collection you’ll meet the likes of:
– Alfred Renaudin through his painting on 1899 prior to the construction of the steps leading up to Sacré Coeur,

– Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), an artist who was drawn to the bohemian and often debauched life of Montmartre,

– Yvette Guilbert (1865-1944), an actress and singer associated here with Montmartre’s café-concert scene of the 1890s. Hear her sing here.

– And can-can dancers, of course.

You’ll see posters. (The famous illustration for the café Le Chat Noir is by Steinlen, mentioned above.)

Including the Moulin Rouge, of course.

The gardens surrounding the museum offer a view of the vineyard of Montmartre from one corner,

a secluded picnic table in another,

and mostly an airy portion around a central basin, where visitors can get a drink or a snack from Café Renoir.

The current temporary exhibition at the museum, until August 26, concerns Van Dongen and the artists of the Bateau-Lavoir.

So where’s the bust of Pouilbot? I leave that to you to find on your treasure hunt.

Musée de Montmartre, 12 rue Cortot, 18th arr. The museum is open daily 10am-6pm, until 7pm April-Sept. Café Renoir, which serves snacks and drinks in the museum’s garden, is open daily noon-6pm May-Sept., Wed-Sun. noon-5pm Oct.-April. Entrance to the museum and the temporary exhibition is 12€.

© 2018, Gary Lee Kraut

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Here are the makers and shakers of the fall art and exhibition season.

Arts Décoratifs. Christian Dior, Designer of Dreams. Through January 7. Hyper-elegant fashion propaganda that will convert the most dedicated GAP guerilla to the couture cause. The first few rooms are black-on-black, a harrowing situation for claustrophobes, but sufferers can dash past to the second half of the show and bask in an orgy of organza and bright silver lights.

Centre Pompidou. David Hockney. Through October 23. André Derain: 1904-1914. October 4 to January 29.

Fondation Cartier. Photography – Malick Sidibé, Mali Twist. October 20 to February 1.

Fondation Louis Vuitton. To Be Modern: Masterpieces from MoMA. October 11 to March 5. A can-miss for New Yorkers, unless you’re feeling homesick already.

Grand Palais. Irving Penn. September 21 to January 29. Gauguin, the Alchemist. October 11 to January 22. It’s advisable to purchase tickets in advance online for the Gauguin show, one of the blockbusters of the season.

Institut du Monde Arabe. Arab Christians: 2,000 Years of History. September 26 to January 14.

Jeu de Paume. Ali Kazma. October 17 to January 21. Albert Renger-Patzch. October 17 to January 21. Steffani Jemison. October 17 to January 21.

Maison Européenne de la Photographie. Liu Bolin. September 6 to October 29. Anne and Patrick Poirier. September 6 to October 29. Richard and Pablo Bartholomew. September 6 to October 15.

Monnaie de Paris. Woman House. October 20 to January 28.  Feminist or Anti-Feminist? The Monnaie de Paris (the old mint), no stranger to controversial exhibits, explores domesticity.

Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaïsme. Charlemagne Palestine. Through November 19. Archeological Discoveries from an Alsace Genizah. Through January 28.

Musée d’Art Moderne. Derain, Balthus, Giacometti: An Artistic Friendship. Through October 29. Medusa: Jewels and Taboos. Through November 5.

Musée Cernuschi. Lee Ungno. Through November 19.

Musée Jacquemart-André. The Secret Garden of Wilhelm and Henny Hansen: The Ordrupgaard Collection. September 15 to January 22.

Musée du Louvre. Francis I and the Art of the Netherlands. Through January 15. Eugène Delacroix. Through July 23, 2018.

Musée du Luxembourg. Rubens: Portraits of Princes. October 4 to January 14. Not Rubens’s most thrilling works other then a remarkable self-portrait on loan from Queen Elizabeth II, but a good way to try to understand the relationship between the Hapburgs and the Bourbons and to see some fabulous neck ruffs.

Musée Marmottan Monet. Monet, Collector. September 14 to January 14.

Musée de l’Orangerie. Dada Africa, Non-Western Sources and Influences. October 18 to February 19.  The Orangerie likes to push the envelope on cross-culture/reception theory, so this show, organized in collaboration with the Museum Rietberg Zurich and the Berlinische Galerie Berlin might break some new, off-beat ground.

Musée d’Orsay. Cézanne’s Portraits. Through September 25. Degas Dance Drawings. November 28 to February 25.

Musée Picasso. Picasso 1932. October 10 to February 11.

Musée du Quai Branly. Sacred Stone of the Maori. Through October 1. Aztec Hotel: Neo-Mayan Style. Through October 8. Afrique des routes. Through November 12. Les Forêts natales: Equatorial African Arts. October 3 to January 21. Peru before the Incas. November 14 to March 31.

Palais de Tokyo. Carte Blanche à Camille Henrot. October 18 to January 7.

Petit Palais. Anders Zorn. September 15 to December 17. The Art of Pastel from Degas to Redon. September 15 to April 18. Due to their fragility, many of these pastels rarely see the light.

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Science doesn’t occupy a world apart in Paris but is integral part of some of the city’s most visited sights. So even if math and science were never your strong points Paris is capable of stimulating your inner geek.

From Eiffel’s engineering to Pasteur’s rabies vaccine, from the trace of the Paris meridian to the swing of Foucault’s pendulum, from the Botanical Garden to the Discovery Palace, science holds a place of honor in the French capital.

It’s a place of honor that’s often ignored. Paris, unbeknownst to must travelers, is one of the world’s most inviting cities for science tourism.

As France commemorates the year of the 350th anniversary of the creation of the Academy of Science it’s time to get your nerd on.

Before setting out, consider a little revision of 5th-grade math and science.

When the concierge tells you that the restaurant is 100 meters from your hotel he means that it’s just 109 yards away. When he tells you that it’ll be 24 degrees Celsius tomorrow that’s t-shirt temperature (75 degrees Fahrenheit). When your fellow jogger in the Luxembourg Garden tells you that a run around the inner perimeter covers 1.6 kilometers you can pace yourself for a cool mile. Before buying a kilo of cheese or chocolate you should know at 2.2 pounds that’s a bit much for one sitting. But 25 centiliters (just over 8 ounces) of draft beer is good enough start for an aperitif, a 350 gram (about 12 ounces) entrecote makes for a hearty meal, and 4 centiliters of calvados brandy makes for a fine nightcap.

A run around the Botanical Garden (Jardin des Plantes) is 1-1.5km depending on the paths you take, but better to take it slow in this 400-year-old institution. That way you take the time to discover its gardens, its zoo and its pavilions dedicated to the sciences associated with plants, animals, minerals and evolution.

The nerdy traveler doesn’t merely see the world-famous sights of Paris, he or she tries to understand what makes them worthy of admiration.

Just as the Mona Lisa, for all her iconic and celebrity status, is first and foremost a major work of art, the Eiffel Tower, before being one of the world’s most recognizable monuments, represents a feat of engineering. Its builder, Gustave Eiffel, wasn’t only interested in understanding structural stability but in all of the scientific advances of his day, especially aerodynamics.

No need to be a math genius to appreciate a few facts and figures about the tower’s construction. If you’d like a little homework before visiting the Iron Lady—or a post-visit cheat sheet—have a look at “All you need to know about the Eiffel Tower” in pdf on the bottom of this page from the official Eiffel Tower website.

Got a taste for astronomical matters? At the center of the magnificent structure that is the Pantheon, you’ll find an example of Foucault’s pendulum demonstrating the rotation of the earth. Not just any example, but an example at the actual location where, in 1851, the general public first saw how the pendulum provided visual evidence of Earth’s rotation.

Foucault first presented his demonstration to men of science at the Paris Observatory. That’s the white dome that one sees when looking south from the center of the Luxembourg Garden. The observatory was founded in 1667, as astronomers were working on defining the Paris Meridian, the line that held sway as zero degrees of longitude. We don’t often see stars in the Paris night sky, but during the daytime the astronomical hunter can look to the ground for markers known as Arago medallions that trace the north-south line of the Paris Meridian. In 1911 Greenwich, England took over the international honor of being on the zero line, pushing Paris east.

Still, Earth’s rotation continued as before. If in Paris on March 20, date of the spring equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, you can watch a spot of sunlight hit a marker by the altar of Saint Sulpice Church, as described here.

Those are just a few examples of opportunities for a scientific approach to visiting the sights of Paris.

Meanwhile, there are a number of fascinating, even unique museums dedicated to scientific study and experimentation.

Those with a penchant for medical developments through the centuries should read this article about Paris’s medical heritage sites and museums.

Universience

Head to the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie at the northeast edge of the city if in the mood for a modern science museum.

I’m a bigger fan, though, of the old-fashion science museum called the Palais de la Découverte, the Discovery Palace, founded in 1937.

I like it for both its presentation—it still has something of a 1930s Frankenstein movie about it, both in the exhibitions and in the grandiose setting of the “palace”—and for its location—right off the Champs-Elysées, adjacent to the Grand Palais (the Great Palace). Consider it a must-see for nerdy children, ages 9 to 99, who wonder about the makings and workings of the physical world.

Together the City of the Sciences and the Discovery Palace form Universcience, a public structure “promoting the culture of science.”

You’d have to be altogether anti-science to not find something to spark your interest and imagination among the exhibits and demonstrations at the Discovery Palace. Permanent exhibitions examine animal communications (rat or octopus demonstrations), optics, the human lottery, hair-raising experiments in electrostatics, sounds and vibrations, aromas and fragrances, mechanics, chemistry, mathematics, pi, the solar system and more. There’s a snack bar/café inside as well. Scientific conferences are given according to a schedule of which can be found here. The Discovery Palace is closed on Monday, as is the museum below.

The National Museum of Technical Innovation

Another outstanding and central museum is the Musée des Arts et Métiers, the National Museum of Technical Innovation, by the metro station Arts et Métiers on the edge of the Marais.

If you aren’t immediately attracted to the theme of technical innovation, you should at least be aware that this brainy museum is among the best of its kind. That’s why it’s been called the Louvre of Technology or the Pantheon of Technical Innovation. I’m no industrial tech-head either, but the objects themselves are as beautiful now as they were innovative when designed.

In 1794, the revolutionary priest Abbé Grégoire presented to the Convention (the body ruling revolutionary France) the idea of creating “a conservatory for arts and trades [arts et métiers] where all of the tools and machines that are newly invented and perfected shall be brought together.” The former Abbey of St-Martin-des-Champs was consecrated to that plan in 1798.

The visitor is greeted outside by a bronze copy of the Statue of Liberty. The circuit inside then begins with a presentation of scientific instruments. From there, the museum is organized in seven sections: materials, construction, communication, energy, mechanics (including choice figures of the museum’s automaton collection) and transportation. There are enough descriptive notices in English to keep you informed without going over the head of the layman. Touch screens provide visuals of the inner workings of the certain machines and technologies.

The circuit ends with the holy of holies, the former abbey church, presented as a veritable church of scientific progress. Another example of Foucault’s pendulum hangs from the ceiling in the 12th-century chapel. In the nave, an early flying machine hangs overhead like an angel, while at the far end the original plaster model of the Statue of Liberty stands like Mary herself, bearing not Child but Flame.

Sacrilege? No, science.

© Gary Lee Kraut

Travel in the spirit of France Revisited with nerd tours and more. See here for more.

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