Paris Digest
Paris city guide since 1997
Musée Carnavalet is housed in Hotel Carnavalet, a rare example of Renaissance architecture in Paris. This rich museum is dedicated to the history of Paris. The Museum reopened in June 2021 after four years of renovation work. Paris museums.
In the heart of Le Marais, the fashionable right bank district of Paris, the Musée Carnavalet (Carnavalet Museum) occupies a superb 16th century palace. The museum is fully devoted to Paris history. Its many palace rooms, shop signs and old Paris paintings make Carnavalet Museum a must see for Paris lovers. Its visit can be combined with the moving visit of the near-by Jewish History and Art Museum.
Hotel Carnavalet was built in 1548. This beautiful city manshion has delicate sculptures by Jean Goujon on its facades and a superb statue of Louis XIV in the courtyard at the entrance.
The Carnavalet Museum, trendy rue des Francs-Bourgeois near-by with its fashion shops and Place des Vosges (Vosges square) make up a great one day program in Le Marais.
Paris metro: Saint-Paul station on line 1
Parking at Hotel de Ville
Locate Musée Carnavalet on Paris map
The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 6pm. Entry to permanent collections if free. Ticket offices close at 5.15pm. and 5.55pm. for the sales counters. Rooms close at 5.45pm. Public holidays: the museum is closed on January 1, May 1 and December 25.
A few hotels near Musée Carnavalet are exceptional, set in old houses and so different from modern hotels everywhere in the world. Hotel Presbytère is one of them. Hôtel Le Presbytère is set in the former presbytery of Saint-Merry church. It is close to Musée Carnavalet and to Centre Pompidou. Notre-Dame is 800 m away.
Set over 5 floors, each room in this 3-star hotel has an en suite bathroom. The Gothic decoration and furnishings will transport guests to another time. A courtesy tray is provided in each of them. A continental breakfast is served daily, in the comfort of your rooms if booked in advance. There are pLenty of bars in rue des Lombards near-by. Many restaurants can be found within walking distance. Chatelet metro station (lines 1, 4, 7, 11 and 14) is just 350m from Hôtel Le Presbytère, making it easy for guests to discover the parts of Paris that are further away. A public car park is available at a surcharge.
In a remarkable architectural setting - two mansions of Le Marais – the Paris History Museum unfolds its collections over hundreds of rooms and colorful gardens. Through the reconstructed decors from the 17th to the 20th century, visitors can follow the evolution of Parisian interiors, immerse themselves in the history of revolutions from the French Revolution to the Paris Commune, but also interfere in the intimacy of illustrious Parisians: imagine, for example, the Marquise de Sévigné, seated at her Chinese lacquered desk, writing her famous correspondence, or even Marcel Proust in his room, between his brass bed and his small table covered with feathers, ink and notebooks.
The proximity of the works of art, the attachment that is created with the personalities of the various intellectual, political and artistic circles of the capital, the emotion aroused by the historical scenes, make all the originality of this museum of history and give it a unique atmosphere, that of the City of Lights through the centuries.
The idea of a museum dedicated to the history of Paris took hold during the Second Empire, when much of the historic heart of the capital was disappearing under the pickaxes of the demolishers. In 1866, at the instigation of Baron Haussmann, the municipality purchased the Hôtel Carnavalet to house the new institution. The building, built in 1548 and remodeled in the 17th century by François Mansart, had been inhabited from 1677 to 1696 by Madame de Sévigné. The museum opened in 1880. Expanded several times, since 1989 it has also occupied the Hôtel Le Peletier in Saint-Fargeau, a neighboring building built in 1688 by Pierre Bullet. Its orangery, one of the last two remaining in the Marais, restored in 2000, houses the prehistoric and Gallo-Roman collections. The museum reopened in June 2021 after four years of restoration work.
