Musée de l'Homme

About Musée de l'Homme

The Musee de l'Homme sits inside the Palais de Chaillot, on the Place du Trocadero in Paris, directly across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower. It's an anthropology and natural history museum that traces a single, broad question: who we are as a species and how we got here. The permanent gallery, the Galerie de l'Homme, walks you through human evolution, biology, languages, and cultures, mixing fossils, skeletons, and ethnographic objects with interactive displays. The collection has deep roots, growing out of institutions that date back to the 19th century, and the museum reopened in 2015 after a long and thorough renovation.

The building itself is part of the appeal. The Palais de Chaillot was built for the 1937 International Exposition, and the museum's upper floors and terrace give you one of the cleaner head-on views of the Eiffel Tower in the city, framed across the Trocadero gardens and the river. Inside, the main exhibition is organized around three questions, roughly who are we, where do we come from, and where are we going, which makes it an easy place to visit with older children as well as adults. There's also a balcony cafe with the same tower view if you want a break partway through.

Allow around two hours for the permanent gallery, more if there's a temporary exhibition on, which the museum runs regularly. Entry is paid, and booking a time slot online is sensible in busy periods. Getting here is straightforward: the Trocadero Metro station is right at the Place du Trocadero, and the square itself is a short walk across the bridge from the Eiffel Tower, so the museum pairs naturally with a visit to the tower or a walk along the Seine.