L’Adresse Musee de La Poste in Paris
Often just known as the Musee de la Poste, this is a unique museum in Paris and the most complete one in France dedicated to the French postal system, although originally it was known as the Maison de la Poste et Phiately.
About l’Adresse Musee de La Poste museum in Paris
This incredible museum in Paris has the most complete collection related to the French post in all of France and was first founded back in 1946, but when you look back at the history of the l’Adresse Musee de La Poste, the idea stemmed from a gentleman called Eugene Vaille many years before.
However, after construction of a building designed to showcase the history of the French Postal Service in the 1970s, this museum is now even more fascinating than ever before, and you will find that it is spread over five floors with eleven rooms purely dedicated to the permanent collections.
There are also an additional four rooms that host temporary exhibitions, along with a large exhibition hall, an auditorium and a library with over 150,000 photographs including airmail posters and stamps plus much more.
But lets take a look at the Permanent Collections
Anyone fascinated with the history of France will be in their element, as this museum in Paris retraces everyday lives of the French from the Middle Ages well before there was a true postal service and post offices, right up to the present day. And it provides a greater understanding into communication, both political and personal, and how this has evolved over the centuries.
Room 1 of the Musee de la Poste explores the means of transporting messages before a postal service ever existed even though a postal organisation first appeared around the 1st century BC instigated by the Roman Emperor Augustus. But this did not survive and during the Middle Ages there were couriers that acted for the king, universities and abbeys, and here you can discover items such as clay tablets and parchments.
The next room looks at the post horse system that was introduced by King Louis XI, which was called La Poste aux Chevaux, and although started for his own needs, it became open to the public and here you can discover badges, mail and the famous boots used by the postal horseback couriers.
Room 3 is where you can discover how the postal system transformed from the 16th century to the 1830s with models of the mail coaches, the post roads and the development of letter post.
The next room at L’Adresse Musee de La Poste highlights the optical telepgraph of the Chappe brothers with different documents, but then goes on to show the electronic telegraph produced by Samuel Morse and how the continent was then linked by cables designed for the purpose.
Room 5 portrays the industrial revolution and how rural postmen were set up in the countryside of France during the 1830s, with cost of post dependant on the distance, but then came the appearance of the first French postage stamp system in 1849, which also reduced the cost of mail.
The technical progress of the postal system in the 19th century is what you will discover in the next room with the introduction of steam trains and mail boats, however room 7 of the Postal Museum in Paris portrays the developments from the end of the 19th century and follows developments in technology such as automobiles, which in turn speeds up delivery of mail.
But continuing on the tour of the Musee de la Poste, room 8 is dedicated to the pioneering use of planes and the age that air mail was born, establishing air lines to Africa and America and you can see model planes that were used, archive footage, posters, maps documents used by pilots and much more. Then room 9 is all about La Poste postal service in France today and how it is likely to be in the future with a more competitive environment and innovations.
Room 10 is dedicated to postage stamps and here you can discover the entire process required to initially create and then produce a stamp with a variety of printing techniques, yet room 11 looks at the history of France through its stamps. You will be able to discover a chronological fresco made of the all the French stamps from 1849, plus there is an audio visual display that traces the history of the French postage stamps along with a cabinet of treasures as it is called.
So from the actual stamps themselves through to uniforms, models, badges and much more, there is so much you can discover at the L’Adresse Musee de La Poste when you are on holiday in Paris and want a completely different type of tourist attraction in Paris to visit.
Access to Adresse Musee de La Poste
The Postal Museum in Paris is open on a Monday to Saturday from 10am through to 6pm, yet there is a late opening until 8pm on the first Thursday of every month, however, it is always closed on Sundays and on all national French holidays.
The cost of entry is €5 as of 2013 for the permanent collections although people under the age of 18 can gain free entry, but the temporary exhibitions are a cost of €6.50 or a reduced rate of €5 and is only free to children under the age of 13.
Audio guides providing detailed information on the permanent collections are also available in French and English for those aged seven upwards at a cost of €2 per person as of 2013, however, we would like to point that that unfortunately the permanent collections are not accessible to people with reduced mobility.
When it comes to accessing the Musee de la Poste, it is located close to the Tour Montparnasse Tower and the Gare Montparnasse train station, so hence the nearest metro station called Montparnasse is the easiest option via exit number 2. Yet the Pasteur and the Falguiere metro stops are also within walking distance.
As for other forms of transport in Paris, you have the buses on numbers 28, 58, 88, 91 and 94 that will get you close by along with the bus tours in Paris, which are called l’Open Tour and don’t forget that it is close to the only true skyscraper, the Tour Montparnasse, with its fabulous panoramic views of the city.
