The International Perfume Museum (Musée international de la parfumerie) in Grasse, France, will reopen on October 18th after 4 years of renovations:
Created in 1989, this one-of-a-kind museum is found in the highly symbolic City of Grasse, the cradle of the luxury perfume trade that began in France.
Dedicated to one of the most prestigious traditional French businesses, the International Perfume Museum, a public institution devoted to safeguarding and promoting the international heritage of scents, aromas and perfumes, allows visitors to discover the unique history of the great perfume Houses and producers.
The renovations have doubled the size of the original museum; new features include a temporary exhibition room, an 80-seat lecture hall, a restaurant and new classrooms. (via museesdegrasse, found via vogue.fr)
Grasse is such a pretty little village! Unfortunately, it brings back bad memories for me: my mother spent some time in a nursing home there after being quite ill. There are several of those establishments in Grasse: it's high up and the air is especially pure. I'd like to go back to exorcize those memories…
To Bela: I hope You can do exorcize the painful memories and enjoy that village one day! I'd like to go see Grasse. They are opening the perfume museum? Now we're talking!
Thank you very much, IrisNobile; I hope so too. Until then, Grasse had been a lovely day-out in the country (we lived in Nice).
Yes, they've reopened the perfume museum *and* the railway line. For years, Grasse was only accessible by road and, since it's up there, at the end of a long, winding road, it took hours to get to it. Easy and quick now.
I second IrisNobile's sentiments…how nice it would be to go back.
Thank you very much, R. Next time I visit the Riviera, I'll make sure I go to Grasse. No hardship.
Sounds interesting. More reasons to add Grasse to the “travel lemming” list (perhaps even longer than the fume lemming list). Do they have “sniffing galleries” I wonder?
Ooooo I would love to visit this one day.
I'm due to take a holiday in the south of France at the end of September, and am planning to make a pilgrimage to Grasse. I'm miffed that I'll *just* miss the opening of this museum. Grrr.
Oh, that is a shame!
J, I think so, but of course there's also the Osmotheque for that.
Me too