High Culture on a Low Budget: Paris’s Musee Nationale du Moyen Age

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The Cluny © wallyg

It’s hard to imagine Paris while simultaneously ignoring the city’s roots in the Middle Ages. We have the Dark Times to thank for many of the streets, buildings, literature, art, restaurants, hotels, and, bien sur, Notre Dame. There is, thankfully, the Musee national du Moyen Age (National Museum of the Middle Ages).

Housed within two buildings from the 3rd and 15th Centuries, respectively, this musee has exquisite collections of statues, armor, furniture, and illuminated manuscripts. It’s sort of a unique and appropriate museum to see in the Latin Quarter, which gets its name from the resident students who insisted on speaking Latin–tres Moyen Age. In fact, when walking around St. Germain and La Sorbonne, you’ll notice mosaic representations of the famous Lady and the Unicorn tapestries that are housed in both this museum and New York’s Met.

The Hotel Cluny houses one arm of the museum and has its own fun and varied history; starting off (as the name suggests) as a hotel, and also serving as a dissection room for a physician, the home for Mary Tudor (wife of Francis I), and the home of Alexandre du Sommerard, whose collection of Renaissance and Medieval art formed the basis of the museum. In fact, his son was the museum’s first curator upon du Sommerard’s death.

Now, this museum is both a hidden gem (way easier to get into than the Louvre or Musee d’Orsay and much less crowded) and a cheap thrill. For adults, the entry is €6.50 ad for students and seniors, it’s €4.50. First Sunday of the month? Under 18? It’s free. How magnifique.

Musee National du Moyen Age
Thermes & Hotel de Cluny
6 place Paul Painleve, 5e
01 53 73 78 16 01 53
http://www.musee-moyenage.fr
Metro: Cluny-La Sorbonne/St-Michel
9:15 am – 5:45 pm Wed-Mon

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