Paris is a wonderful city for art lovers. Wandering the streets is a treat for the senses. Mais quand le temps se gâche¹But when the weather turns bad, there is so much more to discover à l’intérieur des musées de Paris²inside the museums of Paris.

Photo by Andrew Neel from Pexels

A day at the museum

Tout le monde connaît le Louvre³Everyone knows the Louvre. The worlds largest art museum⁴both in actual size and in terms of the size of its collection, is surely the most well-known art museum in France … perhaps the world. The Louvre is not only the world’s largest art museum, it is also the world’s most visited. But the Louvre is just one of many wonderful museums.

Le Musée d’Orsay

Just across the river Seine from the Louvre, housed in an old train station, is the wonderful Musée d’Orsay. Famous for its collection of Impressionist paintings, the Musée d’Orsay is also simply an amazing building full of interesting architectural details … including its very photographed horloges⁵clocks.

Paris’s newest museum

Paris’s newest contemporary art museum is also housed in an architectural gem⁶One as old as the Eiffel Tower and like the tower was inaugurated for the 1889 Universal Exposition. ‘. Billionaire François Pinault renovated the historic Bourse de Commerce to house a portion of his collection and challenged the Japanese architect Tadao Ando to create a space that would mettre en valeur la collection⁷show off/highlight the collection while highlighting the historic nature of the building. You can learn more about the amazing building and see highlights from the collection in this reportage from TV5 Monde.

Le Centre Pompidou

For something a little more modern – both in terms of architecture and collections, le Centre Pompidou, located in Paris’s 4th arrondissement, houses “la 1ère collection d’art moderne et contemporain d’Europe“⁸Europe’s number one collection of modern and contemporary art.

A focus on the artist

If you want to go deep on one artist, Paris also offers you the opportunity to visit museums like the Musée Rodin – where you can see famous works like Le Penseur, Le Baiser, La Porte de l’Enfer, et Les Bourgeois de Calais⁹The Thinker, The Kiss, The Gates of Hell, The Burghers of Calais – or the Musée Picasso.

For your next museum trip …

Here is some useful vocabulary to help you on your next trip to a museum in France (or any French-speaking city).

Pour aller plus loin …

If you’d like to discover more¹⁰pour aller plus loin literally means to go further, check out this list of unusual museums in Paris from the Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau.

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  But when the weather turns bad
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  inside the museums of Paris
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  Everyone knows the Louvre
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  both in actual size and in terms of the size of its collection
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  clocks
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  One as old as the Eiffel Tower and like the tower was inaugurated for the 1889 Universal Exposition.
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  show off/highlight the collection
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  Europe’s number one collection of modern and contemporary art
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  The Thinker, The Kiss, The Gates of Hell, The Burghers of Calais
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  pour aller plus loin literally means to go further
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  a mini tornado, hail, and up to 50 millimeters (5 cm) of rain