The Cluny Museum and thermal baths
Published on 15 September 2019, dans Exhibitions
Under renovation until 2021, the Musée de Cluny can still be visited in part. In addition to The Lady and the Unicorn, a series of tapestries dating from the late Middle Ages, and another 70 treasures belonging to the permanent collection, guided tours offered daily invite you to discover the Gallo-Roman baths. Located near the Grand Hotel Saint Michel, the Musée de Cluny transports you back into the capital’s distant past.
When Paris was called Lutetia
Paris has not always been the city of great Haussmann-era boulevards that we know today. The Cluny thermal baths tell us much about the city’s Gallo-Roman period of antiquity. Built in the 1st or 2nd centuries, they were located in what was then the heart of the capital and are part of an architectural complex extending from the Cluny Museum to the Boulevard Saint-Michel and from the Rue des Ecoles to the Boulevard Saint-Germain. Built on the Roman model and situated close to the Arenas of Lutetia, the baths also boasted a gymnasium where Greco-Roman wrestling was practiced.
Paris in the Middle Ages
Although the Musée de Cluny is still partially closed to the public, you can still see one of the greatest works of medieval art, The Lady and the Unicorn, as well as another Gallo-Roman treasure, the frigidarium. With its 14-metre high vault and fragments of original wall paintings and mosaics, this is the best-preserved part of the baths. During the construction of the Hôtel de Cluny, it served as a hanging garden before becoming a wine cellar in the 18th century. A visit to the baths will show you how water was supplied to Paris at the time and wastewater disposed of in a sewer under what is now the Boulevard Saint-Michel.
Book your stay at the Grand Hotel Saint Michel today and enjoy a visit to the Musée de Cluny and its Gallo-Roman thermal baths.
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Photo credit : © Paris Tourist Office - Photographe : Marc Bertrand
Grand Hotel Saint Michel, a refined hotel at the heart of Quartier Latin