Musée d'Orsay

The Musée d'Orsay's days were numbered in 1973, as they planned to demolish Victor Laloux's former train station and its colossal clocks in order to build an ultra-modern luxury hotel on the Seine's banks. Fortunately, the museum's history and significance won out, and on December 1, 1986, the newly renovated Musée d'Orsay was inaugurated.

After years of construction, the museum reopened its two most important rooms in October 2011. Courbet and Van Gogh have their own chambers, as does art nouveau, which is a first for the museum. Even the excellent coffee shop/café buried behind the clock (built by the Campana brothers) is submarine themed, in homage to Jules Verne's Nautilus, and has just been refreshed.

Approximately 3,000 works of art are on display at any given moment at the Musée d'Orsay. Within the museum, a 1:100 scale replica of the Paris Opera and the surrounding area built by Richard Peduzzi is encased beneath glass flooring that visitors walk on as they progress through the exhibition. This artwork allows visitors to understand the city planning of Paris during the period, making it one of the museum's most popular attractions.

Location: 1 rue de Bellechasse, 7e Paris

Website: https://www.musee-orsay.fr