Paris’ Polish Library boasts three museums – and “boasts” is the operative word here, since three rooms, although located on different floors/ hallways, does not three museums make. Craft your own politically incorrect joke about Poland trying desperately to expand its size/reputation. Anyways… one room celebrates Chopin, with a recreation of his Parisian apartment’s salon, autograph music, plaster casts of his face and hands, and portraits of his students (a lot of whom were hot chicks – Chopin was a baller!). Another room is packed with the “art” of Boleslas Biegas, a 20th century “sculptor” and “painter,” of which all I need to say is look at this. And the last room is a dense and surprisingly interesting monument to Adam Mickiewicz, a Romantic-era Polish poet who taught Polish culture in Paris for a long time and was at the center of the “we’re just as awesome as France! ok, maybe, as Spain” homeland pride movement among Polish émigrés.
Admittedly, I may be biased, since I took a tour of the museums led by an extremely enthusiastic (and cute) guide, and enthusiasm about random stuff is why I love museums in the first place. That said, unless you, too, are hot to trot for Chopin, Biegas, or Mickiewicz, I can’t see very many reasons for you to visit.
