Six small museums we truly love in Paris
The Earful Tower: Paris
Oliver Gee
4.8 • 794 Ratings
🗓️ 12 January 2026
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A personal guide from us - smaller, quieter museums we genuinely love, chosen for their intimacy and character rather than hype. None of these are in the top 15 most-visited museums in Paris.
PS: The music from this episode is an original from Pres Maxson called Guimard's Abbesses.
Here's the list of museums mentioned in the episode. For the full list with addresses, details, websites, etc, check out my website and Substack.
- 1. Musée Rodin
- 2. Musée des Archives Nationales
- 3. Maison de Balzac
- 4. Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature
- 5. Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris (currently closed)
- 6. Musée Nissim de Camondo (currently closed)
- Future Bonus: Musée Hector Guimard (opening 2027ish)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everybody. Oliver G. here for the Earful Tower. Short and sweet episode today, it's a kind of listy one with five small museums that we truly love in Paris. |
| 0:10.0 | I'm talking about me and my wife, Lena Norni G., who I've roped into this episode because after all, she visited all these museums with me. |
| 0:17.8 | So before we get into it, the rules. When I say small museums, I mean both in size and |
| 0:23.7 | popularity. I even looked at the top 15 most visited museums in Paris, according to the tourism |
| 0:29.5 | board. Not one of these that you're going to hear are on that list. And I think they're all |
| 0:34.0 | fairly underrated as well. And this was actually inspired by us visiting the |
| 0:39.5 | Cognac J Museum that was on Lena's bucket list today. Did it make the cut? You'll find out |
| 0:47.1 | after this jingle. Not really a jingle. That's music from Press Maxon and sitting across from me, Lena Norton-G, how you doing? |
| 1:00.5 | Hello, I'm doing great. |
| 1:02.7 | Congratulations on taking off a bucket list item. |
| 1:04.6 | I was just going to brag about it myself, so thank you very much. |
| 1:07.2 | Cognac J Museum. |
| 1:08.8 | Now, in last week's episode, we talked about how we didn't know about it very much. |
| 1:13.7 | We obviously researched it and went and checked it out. |
| 1:16.6 | It's a collection of art from about 100 years ago, Mr. Cognac and his wife, Madame J. |
| 1:22.6 | Yeah, mixed in with some modern art for temporary exhibition, but I think they do a bunch of those. |
| 1:28.9 | So, yeah. |
| 1:30.1 | Did you walk out of there saying, I love that. |
| 1:32.5 | That was the best thing I've ever done. |
| 1:35.0 | Well, wait to put me on the spot. |
| 1:38.2 | I guess no, but I did really enjoy it. |
| 1:42.6 | But it wouldn't be, I don't know, it's not my favorite small museum. |
... |
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