A surprising number of Paris attractions are free. Few achieve the majesty of Notre-Dame, but they are hardly also-rans. Our favorites include unsung art museums and intimate "personality" museums where you glimpse the private lives of cultural giants. Some of these sites are a bit out of the way, but strolling the streets of Paris is a fabulous cheap thrill, as is exploring the less central arron dissements. Who knows? You might even meet a few budget-conscious Parisians.
Two art museums offer a virtual crib course in Western art from antiquity to the 21st century. The Petit Palais serves as the people's Louvre, representing every era from ancient Greece and Rome to the onset of World War I. Awash with natural light from windows and skylights, the building was constructed for the 1900 World's Fair and was recently renovated to regain its Belle Époque grandeur. The most striking permanent galleries chronicle the 19th century revolution in landscape painting that began with Courbet's Realism and culminated in the lush Impressionism of Sisley and Monet. Curators play around with the galleries, sometimes hanging contemporary work next to historical pieces, and integrating decorative arts - Art Nouveau furniture, Japonisme ceramics - with the painting and sculpture.
The building that houses the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris dates from another World's Fair (1937), and its original collections came from the Petit Palais in 1961. A recent renovation places the 9,000 works of mostly 20th-century art in bright settings.
