Our first trip to Paris was a long weekend in mid September, 2007. This happened to coincide with a French celebration which offered free admission to museums and sights. While this sounds very appealing, the lines were so long that we decided to skip the attractions and had a wonderful time roaming the streets of Paris.

We plan to return to Paris this September (anniversary) and would like to spend some time in museums and climb the Eiffel tower which we could not get close to on our last visit. I am wondering if anyone knows if this "free weekend" is an annual event and, if so, on which weekend does this occur this year.

Thank you for any info you can provide.

Cindy

Lots of national museums are free the first SUnday in the month, all the time, such as the Louvre. City museums are always free, I believe (at least they used to be), like the Petit Palais. SO I don't know what event you encountered, but private museums wouldn't be following govt. rules, anyway, I suppose. If they had some special thing that all museums participated in, I have never heard of it. The Eiffel Tower is a private enterprise, so wouldn't have anything to do with any free event by the govt. I've never heard of the Eiffel Tower being free.

They have had some promotion called Nuit des Musees, where they are open late and might be free (not sure about that). I think it's more than Paris, but that is in May.

It was "La nuit blanche". It is held across Europe at the end of the summer, beginning of october. In Madrid it is usually in the middle of September, and it seems that this year in Paris will be the first weekend of October.
Here you have the website :
http://www.paris.fr/portail/culture/...t?page_id=6806
It is still only in french.

Rgds, Cova

Christina, thank you for your reply. The Eiffel Tower's underground mechanisms were open for the public to view, I believe for the first time ever, so there was a huge crowd.

Cova, thank you as well, and that is helpful to know the date for this event is in Oct. this year.

I assume that the weekends are typically more crowded than weekdays but is it enough so that we should schedule are Paris portion of the trip on weekdays. We will have 4 nights in Paris and 4 nights in Strasbourg.

I think you are referring to the "Journées du Patrimoine" where (almost) all public buildings are opened to the public. It is in September and will be this year on September 19th / 20th.

I also think you are referring to the Journées du Patrimoine, but they do not always open the same sites every year. They publish which sites will be open in the newspaper on that weekend, so you can get some idea of what to avoid. As you experienced, the most famous sites get the most crowded.

Despite your disappointing experience, it can be a great event at the right venues, especially out of the way, almost hidden places that are otherwise impossible to get into. And one year I went to Versailles, and so many people were there to enjoy the free gardens, it was really a joy to see the place filled up and people having a party. It felt like a revolution.