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Parc de la Villette Review

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Parc de la Villette

Category: Parks
Location: Canal St-Martin, Bastille, and Oberkampf

Fodor's Review:

This 130-acre ultramodern park was once an abattoir, but don't let its history put you off: today it's the perfect place to entertain sightseeing-weary kids, with futuristic gardens, an excellent science museum, a music complex, and a cinema. You could easily spend a whole day here.

The park itself was designed in the 1980s by postmodern architecture star Bernard Tschumi, who successfully incorporated industrial elements, children's games (don't miss the dragon slide), lots of green space, and dreamlike light sculptures along the canal into one vast yet unified playground. A great place for a picnic, the lawns of La Villette attract rehearsing samba bands and pickup soccer games. In summer there's a free outdoor cinema festival—people gather at dusk to picnic and watch movies on a huge inflatable screen.

In cold weather, you can visit the museums, the submarine, the Espace Chapiteaux (a circus tent featuring superb contemporary acrobatic theater performances), and La Géode —it looks like a huge silver golf ball but is actually an Omnimax cinema made of polished steel, with an enormous hemispherical screen. The ambitious Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie (30 av. Corentin-Cariou, La Villette. 01-40-05-80-00. www.cite-sciences.fr. Porte de la Villette) tries to do for science and industry what the Pompidou does for modern art. There are 60 or so colorful interactive contraptions, and the multilingual children's workshops are perfect ways to while away rainy afternoons. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday 10-6 and Sunday until 7; admission ranges from EUR 3 to EUR 15, depending on whether you visit the planetarium and the submarine, take a workshop, or see an exhibition. Young kids will like the fish-tank wall in the basement. The postmodern Cité de la Musique is a music academy designed by geometry-obsessed Christian de Portzamparc. It has a state-of-the-art concert hall and the spectacular Musée de la Musique (221 av. Jean-Jaurès, La Villette. 01-44-84-44-84. www.cite-musique.fr. Porte de Pantin). The music museum contains some 900 instruments; their sounds and story are evoked through wireless headphones (ask for English commentary). The permanent collection is closed for renovations until mid-2009, temporary exhibitions (EUR 8), such as the recent Serge Gainsbourg tribute, have resumed. The museum is open Tuesday through Thursday noon-6, Friday and Saturday noon-10, and Sunday 10-6.

All that's left of the slaughterhouse is La Grande Halle,a magnificent iron-and-glass building now used for exhibitions, performances, and trade shows. Across the plaza, the outdoor terrace at Café de la Musique (213 av. Jean-Jaurès, La Villette. 01-48-03-15-91. Porte de Pantin) is an inviting place to take a break on a sunny day.

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