The World War wings
From trench helmets to Liberation documents — the most complete museum telling of Europe's twentieth century on either side of the Atlantic.
xiquinhosilva from Cacau — CC BY 2.0 · D. Benjamin Miller — CC0 · Zakarie Faibis — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Zakarie Faibis — CC BY-SA 4.0
Les Invalides is the whole architectural complex — dome, courtyards, Napoleon's tomb; the Army Museum is the collections inside its wings. One ticket and one visit cover both.
History-minded teenagers love it; for younger kids keep to the armour, horses and courtyard cannons — the World War galleries can weigh heavily on them.
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Through the wings of Les Invalides runs the French Army Museum — one of the world's three great military museums, and France's most visited outside the art giants. Its ticket is shared with Napoleon's tomb, but visitors who come "just for the tomb" usually find they've spent twice their planned time in the galleries. The collections span a thousand years: royal armour halls with François I's gilded helmets and medieval weaponry, Napoleonic wings holding the Emperor's actual campaign tent, his famous grey coat and his taxidermied horse — then the two heaviest wings, the World Wars, told with balance through the trenches, Verdun, occupation and resistance to the Liberation. Route advice: take the World Wars first while fresh — they are the richest and the most emotionally taxing — decompress through the royal armour, and finish at the tomb beneath the golden dome.
From trench helmets to Liberation documents — the most complete museum telling of Europe's twentieth century on either side of the Atlantic.
His grey coat, his hat, his campaign tent and field bed — the man who remade Europe present here through his belongings, not his statues.
One of the world's three largest armour collections: the gilded helmets and swords of France's kings in the palace's original halls.
Within the Invalides complex, 75007 Paris