Last Trip of 2012 - Back to Roman Times

The Golden Courtyard Museums are located at 2 rue du Haut Poirier in Metz:

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According to Wikipedia,

The Museums of Metz (Musées de Metz), in Metz, France, were founded in 1839. They are also known as the Golden Courtyard Museums, in reference to the palace of Austrasia‘s kings in Metz, whose buildings they occupy. The collections in this museum(s) are distributed through a 3.500 m2 labyrinthal organization of rooms, incorporating the ancient Petites Carmes Abbey, the Chèvremont granary, and the Trinitaires church. The institution is organized into four broad sections:

• the history and archeological museum, containing rich collections of Gallo-Roman finds — extension works to the museums in the 1930s revealed the vestiges of Gallo-Roman baths;
• the medieval department;
• the museum of architecture;
• the museum of fine arts.

Sounds promising, doesn’t it? And in the beginning, we really liked what we saw. The remnants of the Gallo-Roman baths are indeed awesome and it was wonderful to see all these objects from ancient times that had been very well preserved.

But… disappointment number 1: all the texts in the museum are in French. No English or German translations. I do understand and speak everyday French, but when it comes to French vocabulary about culture, history and architecture, I have to admit that I understand very little. And Lars knows less French than I do. In other words, we saw a lot of beautiful stuff, but didn’t know what it exactly was about.

And that’s a big pity. We cannot help but wonder how for example English or German tourists experience a visit to this place. Or any nationality that has had little or no French in school.

 

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