Musée des Arts Forains – A 19th Century Interactive Fairground Museum

The Musée des Arts Forains (Fairground Museum) is the amazing personal collection of Jean Paul Favand. It’s one Paris museum you won’t want to miss.An old wine warehouse is the home for this amazing spectacle. Have you ever visited a museum where you could play with the displays? We hadn’t and we had so much fun here!

 

Musée des Arts Forains – Tickets

I read several blogs that indicated tickets were limited and difficult to obtain so I started watching the website ridiculously early. It paid off as I got the tickets for the day we wanted and at the time we wanted.  Hint: It appears that tickets become available about 1 month in advance.

Favand has collected and restored the entertaining fairground pieces for 40 years. It is considered to be one of the most extensive of its type. The 21½ hour guided tour was entertaining, informative and interactive.

Musée des Arts Forains – The Museum

Stepping into the museum you enter another time and place. Ancient plane trees and chestnut trees line the cobblestone street between the buildings.

 

 

This is truly a Belle Époque fun fair and we did have fun! The barrel organ was magnificent. It “reads” the music from perforated cards (watch for that in the video). The guide said it could be heard for 2 miles away.

 

 

Each of us had our turn on the carousel which dates from 1900. Soldiers and nobles owned horses during this time period, but not commoners. These carousels provided an opportunity to everyone to ride a horse.

 

 

There was also an older carousel which was only on display.

 

 

The second carousel that we were able to ride was truly fascinating. It can go up to 64 kmh and our group clocked in at 52 kmh. It is pure human pedal power! At the start, all the bicycles leaned toward the center but as the speed increased, centrifugal force began to work and the bikes up righted themselves. (Trivia note: Woody Allen filmed a party scene here in Midnight in Paris.)

 

Musée des Arts Forains – Fairground Games

There were several vintage fairground games on display at the Musée des Arts Forains.

 

 

We even got to play some of the games. The Palio di Sienna, a bi-annual horse race in Sienna is the basis for this game. Each of the 12 participants is assigned a horse in the race. The horse progresses along the race track based your ability to toss the ball into the highest point hole on the board. The better  your aim, the quicker your horse moved. It was as much fun to watch as to play.

 

 

Moving to the next room, giant moving mannequins serenaded us from their perches high on the ceiling when the guide wasn’t telling us fascinating stories.

 

 

I highly recommend this museum for school age and up. At 2 ½ our granddaughter was a bit overwhelmed by it all, including the length of the tour. However, the school-age children in our group had a blast! And so did the adults!

Musée des Arts Forains – Getting There

A big thank you to Feedspot for listing my blog as a Top 10 France Travel Blog!