Palais de Chaillot, Paris

The Musée de l'Homme (Museum of Man) in Paris devotes a third of its area of 10,000sq.m/108,000sq.ft to its prehistoric and ethnographic collections; the rest of the area is occupied by rooms for special exhibitions and a library of over 180,000 volumes on the top floor. On the first floor is the prehistoric material, including such notable items as Menton Man, a cast of the Hottentot Venus and the famous Venus of Lespugue, carved from a mammoth's tusk. The section of the ethnographic department on the first floor is devoted to Africa (including rock drawings from the Hoggar district in the Algerian Sahara, medieval frescoes from Abyssinia and sculpture from West Africa). On the second floor are collections of ethnographic material from the Arctic regions, Asia and America (in particular the art of the Mayas and Aztecs).

The Musée de la Marine in Paris documents the history of the French navy and merchant navy from the galley to the nuclear submarine. Its 13 rooms of pictures and models of ships and port installations, nautical equipment, old charts, figureheads, diving apparatus and much else present an excellent survey of seafaring history. Items of particular interest are a model of Columbus's "Santa Maria" (Room 1); the "Louis XV", a toy boat which belonged to the young king (Room 2); the "Valmy", the last sailing ship in the French navy. made of ebony, ivory and silver (Room 4); some of the first steamships (Room 5); "La Gloire", the world's first ironclad, launched in 1859; and the nuclear-powered submarine "Le Redoutable".

The Museum of the Cinema in Paris covers the development of film from the first "pantinoscope" and the work of the Lumière brothers to the cult films of the present day. It was created by Henri Langlois, who began in the 1930s to collect anything and everything connected with photography and the cinema, including posters, film sets, film scripts and costumes. Film buffs will be thrilled by the props from famous films of the past - costly dresses from "Gone with the Wind", John Wayne's hat from "Stagecoach", bizarre street scenes from Robert Wiene's expressionist silent film "The Cabinet of Dr Caligari", Fritz Lang's robots from "Metropolis".

Below the terrace of the Paris' Palais de Chaillot, at the foot of which during the summer months youthful roller-skaters and skateboarders display their skill, is the Théâtre National de Chaillot, which has two houses with seating for a total of 3,000 spectators. After the Second World War such illustrious actors and actresses as Gérard Philippe and Maria Casarès appeared here under the direction of Jean Vilar. Since 1981 the director has been Jérôme Savary, who is noted for his avantgarde productions.

In 1936 Henri Langlois founded the Cinémathèque Française (entrance in Avenue Albert-de-Mun), which has daily shows of three or four noted films of the past selected from its extensive holdings.

The museum is located in the apartment where the writer George Clemenceau lived from 1895 to 1929. His view included a garden and the Eiffel Tower. Displays include memorabilia and documents such as portraits, books, newspapers and manuscripts.

This museum displays building materials which have been used in the creation of historical monuments. Included are scale models of frameworks and buildings.