The day I had Paris's best museum to myself (and risked missing my son's birth)
The Earful Tower: Paris
Oliver Gee
4.8 • 796 Ratings
🗓️ 31 May 2026
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
C is for Carnavalet. Or should that be Kernevenoy??
In this episode, we dive into one of Paris's most overlooked treasures - the Carnavalet Museum, the only museum in the world dedicated entirely to the history of Paris. I share, for the first time, the story of visiting the newly renovated museum before it opened to the public - completely alone - while waiting for the birth of my first son. Plus: the strange story behind the museum's bizarre name, and the remarkable woman history forgot.
The Carnavalet Museum: 23 rue de Sévigné (also entered from 16 rue des Francs-Bourgeois), 75003
Open Tuesday to Sunday, 10am–6pm. Closed Mondays. Permanent collection is free. Metro: Saint-Paul (line 1) Official website: carnavalet.paris.fr
Mentioned in this episode:
- The €56 million renovation that closed the museum for four and a half years before reopening in May 2021
- Françoise de La Baume — the twice-widowed aristocrat who actually owned the building and whose husband's unpronounceable Breton name gave the museum its peculiar title
- Marcel Proust's cork-lined bedroom, Napoleon's death mask, and a 6,000-year-old canoe pulled from the Seine
The music is from Pres Maxson.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Good day, everybody in the Earful Tower listening world. |
| 0:05.9 | Listening world. |
| 0:06.9 | Well, you know what I mean. |
| 0:08.2 | My name is Lena Norden-Gee. |
| 0:10.3 | I'm the wife of Oliver G. |
| 0:12.1 | And we are here to do a story today about the letter C. |
| 0:17.4 | Oliver, what do you think? |
| 0:19.2 | Carnivalet museum. |
| 0:20.5 | Ah. |
| 0:21.6 | Did you say good day as in good day? |
| 0:24.0 | Yeah, yeah. |
| 0:24.7 | It just came out. |
| 0:26.1 | I just said, let me start. |
| 0:27.5 | I said, okay. |
| 0:28.9 | So, Carnivalet museum. |
| 0:31.0 | I think, I'm sure there's people who've never heard about it. |
| 0:34.2 | So I'm going to rewind for a sec. |
| 0:36.1 | Some people come to this podcast looking for tips of things to do in Paris. Some people come for history. Some people come for, |
| 0:45.9 | I mean, as fortunate as we are to say this, some people come for our own story, storytelling |
| 0:51.0 | anecdotes. This episode contains all of that. And it's about the carnivali museum so if you |
| 0:58.1 | never heard about it before this is the oldest city museum in paris i think it's probably my |
| 1:05.0 | favorite museum oh weirdly i thought it opened oh it was under renovation for a long time. I thought it was only opened five years ago. Essentially, it was. But it was open in 1880, I think, first. Yes, of course. And then, you know, museum fans will be saying, what about the Louvre, 1793 or whatever it is. City Museum, that's a national museum. If you're going to get all into the rules, the carnival is the oldest city museum. It's about the history of Paris. And when I passed it on my Marie walking tour, I say it's obligatory to go there. Also, it's free, so you can just pop in, pop out again if you don't like it. I think you like it. I love it. |
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