We were on a trip through Germany, visiting historic WWII sites, and ventured into France to see…read morethe Maginot Line museum at Fort Schoenenbourg. When we realized how close we were to Verdun, we decided to add a day to visit this area. We weren't sure where to go first, so we thought we'd start here at the Memorial. MOST AMAZING stop ever! This museum is very recently created, as the exhibits were very modern, and had a lot of video and other effects. All the exhibits offered multiple languages (English, French, German) and had great content. The displays were all around you - there were areas with glass floors with displays underneath, displays that you could walk on to view, etc. We were there easily 2+ hours, and could have stayed longer except that we had a lot of Verdun to see in a day! One plus - free parking!! One minus - not the greatest gift shop, just a modest display of some books for sale. I would highly recommend a stop here - it is a museum that can be appreciated by children as well as adults. Also, in the area around the museum along the road there are areas with trenches that you can walk through, and sites up in the trees that you can park roadside and walk to as well which were very interesting. The terrain is very unusual - the bomb craters are very visible even today. So keep your eyes open for those!

Excellent museum dedicated to the Metz, France area from Gallo-Roman to Renaissance times!…read more Some of my favorite parts of the museums were the Gallo-Roman baths, the Altar of Mithras, and the medieval painted ceiling with weird "animals." The museum is a bit of maze. However it is thoughtfully organized with the understanding that people can easily get lost. There are guides situated throughout the museum to guide you in a forward direction so that you don't get lost. Be patient. If you don't get to see an adjacent room in the moment, just know that you will get there. There is a time and a place. Located right next to the Cathedral Saint Etienne! Very quiet. Not crowded on a Monday. Small but interesting, and not overwhelming at all. Took me about 2 hours and I tend to linger and sit.

A wonderful museum, with art and artifacts of the Metz region, dating from at least 100 years…read morebefore the time before Christ through present day. Everything was well-displayed and labeled, although most was in French only. We used Google to help us with translations. There are Roman baths, full skeletal remains in graves from an ancient cemetery, fine examples of woodworking, pottery, sculptures, glass, Renaissance paintings, architectural pieces, and much more! 5 euros per ticket, and my husband and I spent a full 3 hours here. We did not finish viewing the whole museum, but no worries. The tickets are good for 24 hours, so we can return to see the last of the exhibits tomorrow.

Free. Fun to visit, avant-garde exhibits in a modern facility. Popular spot. 5 minute walking…read moredistance from train station. Recommend.

Fantastically amazing exhibits can be found at Centre Pompidou-Metz…read more We had the good fortune to see a visiting exhibit from our hometown in Saarbrücken but it was a lovely blend of French and German art & their influences on each other There was also this excellent exhibit on Oscar Schlemmer & his fun & futuristic ballet costumes Cold as all get out inside the museum.......you'll want to keep your coat with you

From the owner: Un magnifique aquarium Ce jardin est fait d'allées sinueuses qui serpentent autour des bassins, des…read morerosiers et des collections de plantes très prisées au début du siècle, qui permettent de retrouver l'ambiance de "l'Ecole de Nancy". Il possède un aquarium classé monument historique.

This is a great first thing to do. 3 floors of Art. Many styles. They offered a discount due to…read moreour advanced age We took it ..

From the owner: Arts majeurs La rénovation du Musée (1999) a réussi puisque d'un endroit vieillot est né un havre…read mored'espace et de lumière, comme un jardin dans lequel on se promène en empruntant des chemins détournés, en revenant sur nos pas pour mieux apprécier ce que l'on vient de voir, en se laissant guider par notre propre instinct qui nous conduit ici chez les maîtres flamands, là en pleine Renaissance italienne. On peut à loisir s'asseoir directement sur le sol ou emprunter les nombreux sièges et banquettes mis à disposition. Les salles ont été conçues dans des couleurs différentes qui rompent la monotonie de la promenade et révèlent les oeuvres exposées. Et partout la lumière vient s'infiltrer et augmente l'agréable sensation d'espace. Ce musée où sont conservées des oeuvres magistrales telle la Transfiguration de Rubens -un tableau immense de 30 mètres carrés de surface-, la Bataille de Nancy vue par Delacroix ou les impressionnantes scènes peintes par Emile Friand recèle des multitudes de

From the owner: L'Art Nouveau nancéien C'est sans conteste le plus étrange musée de Nancy. Dans l'ancienne…read morepropriété du plus important mécène et collectionneur de l'École de Nancy, Jean-Baptiste Eugène Corbin, sur deux impressionnants niveaux, on découvre une grande partie des réalisations des artistes Art nouveau, fondateurs de cette école de Nancy qui allait briller entre la moitié du XIXe et le début du XXe siècle. Emile Gallé disait : "Ma racine est au fond des bois". Vous pouvez y découvrir, dans cette atmosphère 1900, du mobilier, des verreries, des céramiques, des objets d'art... d'époque. Une grande variété fait la richesse de ce lieu. N'oubliez pas de passer par le jardin, sa porte en chêne, son monument funéraire et son pavillon aquarium.Il propose, de plus, de nombreuses variétés végétales conçues par les horticulteurs nancéiens contemporains de l'Ecole de Nancy (Félix Crousse, Victor Lemoine).

I was traveling with my two college-aged children, and after touring the Memorial Museum we headed…read moreto the Fort to see more. First benefit - free parking! Yay! There was a fair amount of parking spaces, so that made things easy. When you enter the fort, you are given the option of paying for the headset audio guide, or getting a laminated handout for free that you return at the end of your tour. We decided on the handout, and it worked just fine for us. Occasionally we lost our place on the handout, but from an informational standpoint it presented lots of great information and allowed us to travel through the fort at probably a quicker pace than if we had to stand and listen to everything. This fort is very old, and quite frankly in disrepair. This is not a polished museum - you really see it as it was when it was used. The walls/floors are damp, and the ceiling does a fair share of dripping so be prepared! We really enjoyed exploring inside the fort and looking through all the gun vantage points, and then went outside and spent a fair amount of time climbing all over the fort exploring the outer areas as well. The landscape still shows the bomb craters from all the bombing, which makes the battle so much more real. It is definitely worth a stop!

This village northeast of Verdun in the Meuse is a "non-place", a former community of 422 farmers…read moreand woodsmen that was utterly destroyed during the World War I Battle of Verdun, from February through October, 1916. The hero of Verdun, Henri Pétain, was a hero in part because he favored artillery over human bodies as a defensive strategy. So for all the frightful casualties of this campaign - 100,000 bodies were later found littering the fields of this sector alone - things might have gone worse for the French poilus, if Pétain had not used artillery to hold the German advance. But the cost was the complete obliteration of nine villages, Fleury-devant-Douaumont among them. Today, you reach the village by a road through a forest where not one single tree pre-dates the battle. On the right, there is a restricted zone where tank crews train. Where the road peters out, you come upon a moonscape with markers for streets and houses and young trees sprouting out of shellholes. It is a sobering place, to say the least. After the war, the French Premier Henri Poincaré came through here and thanked the villages of "la Zone rouge" for their sacrifice. When you stand at the junction in this ghost village, Poincaré's gesture rings well-intentioned but a bit pointless.