Months after I left Paris, I finally find myself capable of really reminiscing about it. I admit honestly that I tried to avoid thinking of Paris, because I felt I would be missing my time there so much. As of now, the day I go back to Paris, these would be the things I want to do:
– Spend a day in the Centre Pompidou
– Spend another day for Louvre and Musée d’Orsay
– Go to the Musée Rodin and the Orangerie
– See all the upcoming buildings that hopefully will be finished by the time I go back
– See the following museums: Musée Marmottan, Musée des arts décoratifs, Fondation Cartier, Catacombes, Musée Cernuschi, Musée de la Contrefacon, Musée Dupuytren
– Buy at least three pairs of Chucks at St-Ouen
– Go to the Flèche d’Or and the Café Universel again
– Go to Poissy and the Parc Astérix
– Go to a manga café and buy lots of manga
– Go to eat in the Rue Ste-Anne and our barbecue place
– Buy baguettes and cakes
– Watch a movie in a parisian movie theater
– Eat soufflés, since I seriously doubt I’ll ever be able to make them
– See something at the Opéra Garnier
– Walk up the Eiffel Tower
Enough nostalgy, back to the actual point of this post: Inspired by short and clear pages like this, let me attempt to give a short for all of them, except for the grand 10, hehe.
32. Conciergerie
Incredible waste of time and horribly overrated. Somewhat nationalistic touch and absolutely pointless.
31. Musée de l’Homme
A little boring, a little interesting and in many, many ways very questionable. Tries to be political, eek.
30. Musée de la Vie Romantique
Mostly boring, but somewhat cute in a weird sense. Way too small, but that saved us time.
29. Musée Maillol
Art that I find personally boring and not aesthetic at all. But it has some interesting temporary exhibitions: the one we saw “Allemagne. Les années noires.” was brilliant, perhaps one of the best exhibitions in my life.
28. Hotel des Invalides/Musée de l’Armée
Parts of it are very interesting, Napoleon’s tomb is impressive, but the Musée de l’Armée is mostly large and glorifies the war in a disgusting way.
27. Maison Victor Hugo
Definitely something for the fan, but since I’m not, I wasn’t all that interested in Hugo’s personal belongings. But it’s free and an okayish detour when you’re at the Place des Vosges anyways.
26. Musée Gustave Moreau
I am a big fan of the famous staircase, I just find it sublimely beautiful. Apart from that, this is a very personal, small museum without much interesting to see.
25. Petit Palais
The entrance is beautiful, but there was not one single piece of art I have liked. Boring for most of the part for me. Perhaps my expectations are just too high and I’m too used to great art.
24. Musée National de l’Histoire naturelle – Grande Galerie de l’Évolution
In the Jardin des Plantes, this is a somewhat silly museum for children. Somehow I found the atmosphere in it a little creepy due to weird lighting conditions, lots of dead animals and the fact that there were barely any people.
23. Musée National de l’Histoire naturelle – Galerie de Minéralogie et de Géologie
A somewhat underrated museum which had a really nice temporary exhibition of underwater creatures.
22. Musée de l’Érotisme
I admit that I have somewhat expected more than this, perhaps a better mix of seriousness and actual art. Most of the pieces were curiosities that looked rather tasteless, making the museum everything but erotic in itself. But, parts of it was quite educational, funny and interesting.
21. Musée du Moyen-Age/Thermes de Cluny
The interior is quite nice and some pieces (especially the famous tapestries with the unicorns) were nice.
20. Institut du Monde Arabe
What a stylish museum! It was inspirational and made me very interested in the arabic culture, however, the little amount of information given and the way these few exhibition pieces were presented made this museum a little bit disappointing. A lot felt like propaganda (but perhaps I also am rather sensitive to anything that could look like propaganda).
19. Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie
It’s a place for kids, that’s for sure. But I like science museums and am thus a little biased towards it. Also, it looks cool from the outside, especially the Géode.
18. Musée du Quai Branly
Quite controversial indeed: It looks great and has a nice-looking interior too. There was one single piece I really liked (an african coat that had quite a great pattern on it), but the museum itself is quite weird and horribly structured and not very pleasant to walk through.
17. Jeu de Paume
I was there only once, and that was for some silly video installations which took ages to go through and ultimately were quite bad. However, the modern style of the museum and its openness to so many different kind of things is quite nice.
16. Espace Salvador Dalí
A little bit too small for my taste (especially for that price), but it had lots of nice, small things and made me realize that I really like Salvador Dalí. I also want his illustrations of Alice in Wonderland.
15. Mosquée de Paris
It’s the first mosque I’ve ever been in my life, and the interior looks absolutely splendid in my opinion.
14. Musée Carnavalet
For some reason, everybody loves this museum, and if it’s for the supposedly 60 paintings of the Pont Neuf. It is quite a sweet thing to go for when you actually like Paris.
13. Cinématheque francaise
Well, what can I say: This has turned into a film blog, so obviously I would have enjoyed the Cinemathèque. There were lots of objects especially from the very beginnings of film, and I learnt quite a bit about old films. But for the most part, this is a museum for people who are already cinephiles and have seen lots of films: Most of the exhibition consists of dark rooms with scenes of films being displayed and objects from those films.
12. Musée Picasso
Personally I like Picasso a lot, so of course I liked such a large coverage of his works, especially since it shows that Picasso didn’t only do the cubism stuff. Also, the building and its surrounding are pretty nice. Definitely worth it if one is interested in Picasso, otherwise not for obvious reasons.
11. Arts et Métiers
Actually, to be honest, I have somewhat mixed feelings about this museum, but finally I have to admit that I have really, really liked it and would easily recommend it, and if it’s just for those beautifully old showcases. It definitely is one of the most unique and stylish museums of Paris.
10. Panthéon
I would never recommend anyone to see the inside of the Pantheon, I mean hey, who would be interested in seeing the tombs of unknown french people. 7-something euro are not worth the great architecture in it, but the building is plain splendid in my opinion, I could go there and stare at it for ages. Hands down, I love the Pantheon for silly personal fangirling reasons.
9. Grand Palais
Perhaps one of the greatest buildings in Paris, the Grand Palais at least had one really good exhibition which was a large exhibition of Courbet works in an astounishing show. Besides that, the Grand Palais is grand in every sense possible and a pleasure to look at, whether it’s on the inside or the outside. It’s just costy.
8. Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
It’s for free, that’s what makes it attractive for most people, I suppose, but I also think that there are quite a few interesting works on display. Museums like this and the Centre Pompidou made me realize that I’m the type of person who actually likes modern art from an aesthetic standpoint, and doesn’t care all that much about whether I “understand” the work.
7. Palais de Tokyo
Same as for the Musée d’Art Moderne, it’s very modern art and thus an absolute hit or miss. I like the concept and the philosophy of the museum a lot though.
6. Musée Guimet des Arts Asiatiques
I’ve been there 3 times and although I do feel bored after seeing the same pieces 3 times, I think it has a lot of treasures on display and is surprisingly large. Perhaps I am biased towards asian culture or something, but I think that the museum shows quite a lot of nice things, representing quite a large variety of asian cultures.
5. Musée Rodin
Everybody has been raving about this museum, but I have never been a huge fan of Rodin before I went there, and never expected to be so positively surprised: The parc of the museum is splendid and the museum itself has so many impressive sculptures, very representative of the major picture of Rodin’s work. While the most famous work of other artists are mostly displayed in the Louvre and the likes instead of the museums dedicated to the artists, this museum actually also has a lot of Rodin’s famous sculptures. And boy, how amazing these sculptures are. The anatomy always feels a little off, but the dynamic poses totally make up for it. Rodin’s sculptures come to life, and I love them for that.
4. Orangerie
How should I put it, I have loved Monet since I was a little child, and even own an artbook with large, fold-out pages of his water lilies. In the Orangerie, they are displayed in the most beautiful way ever, and even besides that, there is a small, but nice collection of art from the same time.
3. Musée d’Orsay
I find it difficult to speak about the Musée d’Orsay because it is just too overwhelming. To name all the interesting works and artists in the museum would make me run out of space and it’s one of the museums where you always discover something new whenever you go into it. Many people say it’s their favourite museum in Paris, and I can see why: So many great artists, such an impressive interior and interesting temporary exhibitions.
2. Louvre
No further comment needed, I suppose. You walk through the Louvre and feel like everything in it looks familiar because it’s actually a famous piece of art. Just last year alone, I think I’ve been there 5 times, and before, there were at least 2 times where we walked through the whole museum. I probably have seen the Nike more often than the posters in my room, and I could spend my life in the Louvre.
1. Centre Pompidou
Going to the Centre Pompidou honestly was an incredible culture shock for me. Even though I have seen (and liked) the MoMA before when it was in Berlin, I have never expected myself to be taking such a strong liking on all those crazy exhibition pieces in the Centre Pompidou. As long as one is not particularily desinterested in modern art or art in general, this is the museum to go.
Yeah, so the first three places are reserved for the big three museums of Paris. It is my theory that many european cities have a triad of museums. For London, it’s British Museum + National Gallery + Tate; for Paris, it’s Louvre + Orsay + Pompidou; for Madrid, it’s Prado + Reina Sofia + Thyssen; for Berlin, this doesn’t work all that well though: there is the Museumsinsel, but there also is the Jewish Museum and the Neue Nationalgalerie, hm!
The first five museums in the rankings are the absolute must-sees if I’d have to give a recommendation, and besides that, Paris is a fabulous place to slowly indulge yourself into the pleasure of going to museums. It really was one of the greatest part of being in Paris, and I would have never expected for museums of all things to influence my life and thinking so much.
Oh, you finally posted this publicly. As you can imagine, I would re-order this a bit, but allow me to just do a top however many are most important to me. I’ll also mention ones I want to visit again when we return to Paris.
1. Centre Pompidou – Naturally, haha. This would be number 1. I should say my ranking reflects my overall enjoyment at each museum. This can include the building itself, the exhibits, or both!
2. Musée Rodin – I too was not a fan until this museum. I am looking forward to going to the second largest Rodin museum in Philadelphia.
3. Palais de Tokyo – The Third Mind was the best exhibition of my life.
4. Louvre – Well the Louvre should be really high after all. It was great to wander around its massive collection.
5. Arts et Métiers – I really loved this museum; it is too bad we were pretty tired when we went to it, because it is really underrated.
6. Musée d’Orsay – The Beaux arts drawings were especially beautiful and interesting to me as you might imagine.
7. Mosquée de Paris – This was my first mosque as well, and I was taken by its beauty and how well the courtyard works in terms of keeping the building cool.
8. Institut du Monde Arabe – Naturally, some Jean Nouvel.
9. Espace Salvador Dalí – I didn’t typically thing of these small pieces of art when I thought of Dali.
10. Hotel des Invalides/Musée de l’Armée – It’s French.. I think that is all I have to say.
11. Musée Maillol – The German exhibition was brilliant.
12. Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
13. Musée National de l’Histoire naturelle – Galerie de Minéralogie et de Géologie
14. Orangerie
15. Panthéon
16. Musée Carnavalet
17. Thermes de Cluny – Notice this is just the thermes XD.
18. Musée de l’Homme – Also very French.
To go to:
Musée de la Contrefaçon
Musée Marmottan-Claude Monet
Musée du Montparnasse
Fondation Cartier
And that medical oddities museum whose name I have forgotten XD.
Oh my, this is quite amazing, your list has surprised me so much! Sure, the Centre Pompidou was expected, but everything else… I didn’t think you liked the Palais de Tokyo so much. I liked The Third Mind too, but unlike you, I wasn’t all that familiar with this guy’s concept of art and so didn’t enjoy that exhibition that much, I suppose. It was interesting though. At that time, I think I just thought you were interested in art in general without realizing that you liked it so much, hahaha.
Of course the Arts et Métiers was great, it also was such a surprisingly large museum. My favourite was the chapel near it though, that was pretty cool.
If you had been in the museum of the Institut du Monde Arabe, I doubt it will stay that high. However, the building is probably the best of all of them. Perhaps it’s even my favourite building in all of Paris, it just looks so immensely cool and makes me feel like even a guy like Jean Nouvel was able to make arabic art so pleasant, sympathetic and accessible for the western world. More than any building, I think this is a great example of overcoming the underlying political problems.
Goodness, how can you have the Hotel des Invalides/Musée de l’Armée before the Musée Maillol, the d’Art Moderne, the Orangerie and the Pantheon? XXXD I mean, for me, the Musée de l’Armée sucked so much and I don’t see why it would a positive thing that there are such relics of french war glory exhibited XD But if it’s about Napoleon, it’s true that it’s pretty cool. If I look at your comment for the Musée de l’Homme, I feel like “french” equals “ridiculously nationalistic” for you XD (On a side note: What, you actually liked the Musée de l’Homme? Okay, it’s true that I have found parts of it very entertaining, but somehow it gave me the creeps to be there at the same time.)
Well yeah, I feel sorry for those great museums you have on such a low ranking XD And it’s true that the Thermes of Cluny were pretty nice, just a bit… empty? lol
Ultimately I didn’t feel like any of those museums were a waste of time, except for the Conciergerie, and I’m glad to have experienced all of them.
So, what is the Musée du Montparnasse? That’s the only new addition you have to my list XD Also, the medical oddities one is the Musée Dupuytren, I think, haha.