In which I acquire some culture

This week, apart from a lot of grocery shopping, I went to two of Lyon's museums, the Musée des Beaux-Arts (fine arts) and the Musée de l'Imprimerie (printing). I had good fortune with both of them because outside the Musée des Beaux-Arts, a woman asked if I was going in (...no, I'm walking in the door for another reason) and gave me her ticket and then the Musée de l'Imprimerie is free for under-26 so I got two museums for the price of zero!

The courtyard at the Musée des Beaux-Arts
My favourite part of the museum was the Art Nouveau display. They had arranged a suite from a French hotel (Parisien I believe) as it actually was in the early twentieth century. Isn't it fantastic?

I also liked this sculpture because it reminded me of someone (somedog?).

The Musée de l'Imprimerie is in a charming old building, which I would guess to be 15th or 16th century, but take that with a grain of salt due to my general architectural ignorance. At any rate, it's small and has a stone spiral staircase and vaulted ceilings. It also has an atelier attached where artists and printers work. Some of their pieces are included in the exhibit.

They have a permenant exhibition of the history of printing, from Gutenberg to World War II. I was pretty much the only person there and I think I kept surprising the guards when I walked in.

They also had a special exhibit on called "Miniscules" which is pretty much what it says: very very tiny books. Unsurprisingly, I liked the old editions better and was astonished by the Bibles the size postage stamps. Here we have Midsummer Night's Dream, maybe 3cm tall.


A lovely peaceful museum filled with books. My kind of place. I'm definitely going to keep an eye on their future exhibits since I can get in for free for another 4 years!