A visit to 2 small museums in Paris

There are many reasons why my wife and I keep coming back to Paris. One of them is the immense variety of things to see and do there. Every time we return, we have a list of favorite places to see and things to do. But we also have a companion list of new things to visit and do.

Ossip Zadkine, a sculptor's self-portrait. 

The itinerary for our October trip included a pair of small museums that we'd read about - Musee Zadkine and the Musee d'Art et d'Historie du Judaisme. (Both, by the way, are recommended by a French blogger who I follow. Her name is Clotilde Dusoulier. She calls her blog Chocolate & Zucchini.)

Our plan was to go to Zadkine first. It's located close to the Luxembourg Gardens and only a few blocks from the hotel where we stayed. This fit our plan of old and new nicely, since the Gardens are on our must-visit list. So on a bright Monday morning, after getting checked into our hotel, we strolled across the Gardens to find the museum. 

It turned out to be not that easy. We had the correct address. We even had it on Google Maps, but somehow walked by it without noticing. When we finally got reoriented and found the door, we were chagrined to realize that the museum is closed on Monday. Well, no matter. We had plenty of things to see on our list. 

We almost decided not to come back. That would have been a bad decision. On Wednesday, after a breakfast of espresso and a croissant, we made our way across the Gardens again and were pleased to find the doors open and welcoming. We did have one more glitch. Musee Zadkine is usually listed as a free museum. But on our visit, we had to pay an entrance fee of a few Euros. It turns out that there was a special exhibition commemorating the 50th anniversary of the artist's death. 

The artist, Ossip Zadkine, was born in Russia in 1890. He studied in London and moved to Paris in 1910. His home and studio now is the site of the museum that features his sculptures. The special exhibit was particularly fascinating, since it included works by many other artists who influenced Zadkine. These included Pablo Picasso and Auguste Rodin. 

Many of Zadkine's pieces are displayed in a quiet garden surrounding his studio.

While the Musee Zadkine exceeded our expectations, the Musee d'Art et d'Historie du Judaisme was ... not disappointing, but also not quite as engaging as we had expected. In fact, if you look at the museum's site online, I think it's more interesting than the actual museum. 

I hope that doesn't come across as too harsh. We did enjoy the museum. It does exactly what the name describes - it provides a broad historical perspective on Jewish history beginning in the Biblical era. It appropriately has a focus on the history of Jews in France, but not exclusively. 

It's located in the Hotel de Saint-Aignan. (The museum's web site provides an interesting history of the building.) Our visit provided us with a nice cultural break after spending the morning sightseeing and shopping in the Marais. (The museum's web site explains that the Jewish presence in the Marais dates back 700 years, but with notable gaps during periods of anti-Semitic persecution and expulsion.) 

The courtyard leading to the entrance of the Jewish museum.

A fascinating, but morbid visit to a Paris cemetery

We all make compromises with loved ones, right? I don't know if visiting a cemetery would have been high on my list of things to do in Paris. But my wife really wanted to. So on an overcast and blustery day in mid-October, we trekked across town to the gates of the Pere Lachaise Cemetery. 

My first suggestion - learn from our mistake. Don't walk. Take a taxi or public transportation. It was a long walk, 2.5 miles, from our hotel near the Pantheon. It wasn't a bad walk, but the neighborhoods were not particularly scenic. It was nice to see some of the neighborhoods outside of the tourist center of Paris. And, for that matter, it didn't take too much longer than public transportation. It took us around 45 minutes to walk it. The shortest public transit route took 31 minutes (according to Google Maps) and required a transfer. But if you do decide to walk, remember - when you get there, all you're going to be doing is walking around some more. 

My wife had a list of graves she wanted to find. We had a map that we'd accessed on the internet, and there are detailed maps in the cemetery. But still, it's not easy to find specific graves. As we began exploring the winding paths through the cemetery, one of the first things we came across was the Jewish section. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but even in death the Jews of old Paris were segregated in a Ghetto. There is a Rothschild family vault, but we couldn't find it. (Later on during our visit, we did find newer Jewish graves in other parts of the cemetery.)

Chopin's grave in Paris - pilgrimage for a piano player

We did find the graves of Jim Morrison and Frederick Chopin. We looked for others, including Gertrude Stein and Edith Piaf. But we just couldn't find them. We came across the tomb of Honore de Balzac, though we weren't really looking for it.

Jim Morrison's grave - pilgrimage for Doors fans

For me, the thing that made our visit memorable was a series of very moving monuments to the victims of World War II and the Nazis. Besides several monuments to French Jews who were murdered in various concentration camps, there also were memorials to French soldiers and resistance fighters who died in the war.

Monuments to those sent to Sachsenhausen (left) and Buchenwald (right)