Make a visit to Kennebunks


 

Paris Off the Beaten Path: Try Small Museums

Small Paris museums offer you an alternativeStill closer to the Gare Montparnasse is the
to the large venues when you wish to avoidMusée de la Poste, an offshoot of the
the crowds there. See which museums to visitpostal administration - and a good place to
here.take the prettiest mail-woman in your
neighborhood.
Fan of Klimt, Schiele & Co., I recently
wanted to take a leisurely look at the GrandOpened in 1973, it's a museographical
Palais blockbuster exhibition on Vienne 1900.surprise: you take an elevator to floor five
I picked a weekday mid-afternoon, assuming Ithen spiral down, room-to-room, to the ground
could whizz in and loiter through. Oops! Ifloor.
lined up before the entry (in freezing
weather) for over an hour. And when I got aGoodies along the way include: an
glimpse of the over-populated jostling goingarticulated-arm Chappe semaphore (ca. 1800),
on  inside,  threw  in  the  towel.part of a France-wide network enabling
messages to come 10 km. station-to-station in
If body-contact sport isn't your ideal forclear weather from, say, Calais to Paris in
expo-visiting in Paris (or elsewhere), tryjust over an hour until France imported
small  museums.Samuel Morse's system in 1856; a lovely 1900
ceramic post office counter; and an
Here's a sampling of Parisian fares in thisexplanation of Paris pneumatique system that,
vein, where - despite the displays' intrinsic1866>1984, air-propelled correspondence via
interest, and English documentation generallyunderground tubes at a speed of up to 700
available - you're not likely to have yourmeters  a  minute.
feet trampled or be elbowed in the ribs. Some
are so tiny they aren't mentioned in Bordas'Address:
authoritative  Guide des Musées de France.
34  boulevard  Vaugirard
Let's begin by wandering down rue Antoine
Bourdelle, 15e arrondissement (district) nearParis  15th  district
the Gare Montparnasse. At no. 18 you can't
not notice, through a grillwork fence, aOpen except Mondays and holidays 10 a.m.>6
garden hosting a bronze horse almost twop.m.
storeys  high.
Full entry: €5; reduced: €3.50;under
This is the Musée Bourdelle, former home18  and  mailmen/women:  free;
and studio of the sculptor (1861-1929) for
whom the street is named, and whose work -Metro  station:  Montparnasse.
fittingly for a small museum? - was grandiose
in intent and result. The style is somewhereAnd now, for gruesomely comic (?) relief :
between rough-hewn Rodin (with whom heParis' Crime Museum a.k.a. Musée des
collaborated for a while) and Art Déco'sCollections Historiques de la Préfecture
wind-swept  streamlining.de  Police.
On view are samples of his inclination forCan you imagine what early handcuffs looked -
antiquity and exoticism that range fromand felt - like ? Ouch ! They're there. As
statues of Sappho and Archer Heracles to aare: a genuine guillotine blade, perhaps used
monumental portrayal of Polish national poeton the murderer of a nearby victim's
Mickiewicz and bas-reliefs of music, drama,punctured skull, and stark temporary
etc. for the Théâtre des Champsexhibits.
Elysées, inaugurated in 1913. It was
inaugurated with a scandalous premiere ofA recent one of these documented
Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, danced by aoh-so-graphically the trials and tribulations
rather lightly clad Nijinsky. That yearof bagnards - forced-labor convicts
Bourdelle exhibited work at New York'stransported to hellish camps in e.g. New
landmark  Armory  Show.Caledonia and French Guyana as late as 1953.
Among them was the escapee-author of 1970s
Address:U.S.  best-seller  Papillon.
18  rue  Antoine  BourdelleAddress:
Paris  15th  district4  rue  de  la  Montagne  Sainte Geneviève
Open except Mondays and holidays 10 a.m.>6Paris  5th  district
p.m.
Open  Monday  through  Friday  9  a.m.>5 p.m.
Full entry: €4.50; youth: €2.20;
under  14:  free.Free  entry  (except  for executed criminals)
Metro  stations:  Montparnasse, Falguière.Metro  station:  Maubert-Mutualité
Just around the corner is the diminutiveFor wine buffs I can think of no place better
Musée du Monparnasse recalling suchthan the Musée du Vin (Wine Museum). It
Roaring-'20s Montparnasse denizens asopened its doors in 1984, and hunkers in 13th
Hemingway, Picasso and Modigliani. It openedcentury quarries reconverted in the 16th-17th
its doors in 1998 in a quaint paved streetcenturies by monks to store their wine
(Chemin du Montparnasse) which itself is(grapes grew abundantly on the Passy slopes,
worth  the  visit.now  facing  the  Eiffel  Tower).
The museum offers its visitors a treasureRanging through time from Roman domination,
trove of photographs taken by such luminariesand signposted by mini-Bacchus figures,
as Robert Doisneau and Henri Cartier-Bresson,displays include viticulturists' tools, a
and many watercolours and prints bybarrel-maker's workshop, and vessels for
Montparnasse  artists.testing, storing, transporting and consuming
the  beverage.
Address:
The visit ends with... wine-tasting. You can
21  avenue  du  Mainealso  lunch  there.
Paris  15th  districtThermal springs once flowed here, so the Wine
Museum  is  on... rue des Eaux: Water Street!
Open except Mondays and holidays 12:30 a.m.>7
p.m.Address:
Full entry: €5; reduced: €4;under 12:Rue  des  Eaux  - 5, square Charles Dickens -
free;
Paris  16th  district
Metro  station:  Montparnasse
Open Tuesday through Sunday 10 a.m.>6 p.m.



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