Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie

Have been going here with my children since they were 2 years old – my 15 year old son still enjoys visiting the museum. Don’t expect a ‘museum’ like the Science or Natural History one in London. This one seems to offer a different perspective to the UK ones I have visited – more ‘discovery’ and ‘thought provoking’ than the bald statements of facts that we are used to in UK museums. It helps if you can read & understand French since, although there are multilingual signs & explanations, the French ones are clearer & you get more from the (very helpful) staff if you speak their language.

There are excellent special ‘discovery’ rooms for youngsters (under 11 if I remember rightly) which you have to book in advance – they limit numbers so it does not get too busy. Our most recent visit coincided with a ‘free weeked’ but normally you have to pay – you can generally pay on-line & collect tickets at the entrance. Having moved away from Paris, I am now out of date on costs, opening times & other details. Parking on site is ample. Food (despite being in France) is poor.

Recent up-grades include seats for two or more people to sit side-by-side when looking at or exploring an exhibit. This is a vast improvement, I had not realised how much my attention span was influenced by my comfort and ability to share views or access to information!

Site is indoors, although there are outside activites too & a 3D cinema.

The shop offers a selection of books and toys. There seem to be few toys of interest to teenagers – more oriented towards under 10 years old – while the books, with one or two exceptions, are in French and targetted to all ages.

Would & do return again & again!

I love going to the Cité des Sciences, each section has a different exposition but I admit that I had a soft spot for the exposition about “Sense of Smell in Movies”. Every time that a movie was broadcasted, the room was filled with a different smell: apple pie, bee wax… The Geode is impressive, it is a section not to be missed! And the whole family enjoys it but the younger ones can have fun or you can leave them where they’ll be taken care of by staff.

There is no other museum in Paris as interactive as this. The museum lives by the mottos that there is no science without experience and it invites you to learn about it on the spot. Listen to the respiratory system through a stethoscope, go to see some little mice, create your own ideas about the prevention of AIDS, visit the planetarium, etc…
I lived beside it, but was too tired to step inside!

Good day out for children and adults alike. A short train journey from central paris brings you straight into the park. Some wonderful exhibits, lots of interactive ones. You will need a full day here to see everything. There are plenty of food stalls too and a nice little cafe bar next to the water feature. Cost is minimal to what you see and there are different packages and discounts to be had.

This is one of the most tactile museums I’ve ever been to. It’s enormous, with several sections devoted to different branches of science: biology, botany, mathmatics, physics, etc. But the content is not etherally abrstract; it’s what is applicable to the ordinary person - the car you drive in, the food you eat, the innovative design of your home stereo system, etc. And as much as possible, the exhibits engage your sense of touch and hearing as well as sight. In addition to the numerous exhibits, there is a steady stream of seminars (various topics) held throughout the day in different locations. Anyone can join the audience.

The exhibits are quite accessible to tourists as well as the French, with most descriptions, explanations, and museum signs in English as well as Spanish. I was also impressed by consistent use of Braille signs and even some visual exhibits “translated” into a bas-relief pannel.

There is also a planetarium with five or so shows. The planetarium itself is quite comfortable and the projection was good, though I found the presentation about the solar system a little disappointing - lacking in interesting content. There is, however, the Geode movie theatre for more modern scientific films. There is also a submarine on the site, the Argonaute, open for touring. This is located in the lovely gardens behind the centre. On the lower floor, you’ll find a small but nice aquarium next to one of the restaurants.

The Cité houses a large library stocked with science books, DVD/CDs and magazines/journals of all kinds. There are confortable tables and chairs for study, (and these are used quite regularly by local students and professionals). There’s a kid’s section to the library (as well as one in the museum proper).

The ticket price for one day is somewhat pricey, but for only four Euros more, you can have access for one full year. It’s a good deal (for a local) as you can’t do justice to all the exhibits in one day. The library is free, but you need to pay a reasonable annual fee borrow items. The Geode movies are extra, about 10 Euros a ticket.

The only reason I wouldn’t give the Cité five stars is that, as big and impressive as it is, it’s showing signs of wear and lack of maintenance. In one section I visited, about a third of the interactive displays were not working. In another section, several video screens were blank. There are tons of security guards on site, but maybe not enough curators?...hmmm.