More into art and literature than romcoms and chocolate boxes? Why not do something a bit more interesting (but still on theme) this February 14 and take a trip to Paris?
Okay, going to Paris on Valentine’s Day is hardly an original idea – this is Europe’s most romantic city we’re talking about, with buckets of lovey-dovey things to do – but the reopening of the Musée de la Vie Romantique (or Museum of Romantic Life) offers a unique reason to make a beeline for the City of Love in Feb.
The museum, which has been closed since September 2024 for a huge year-and-a-half-long refurb, houses a collection of works from the Romantic period. This cultural and artistic movement, between the late 1700s and mid-1800s, focused on the portrayal of nature and emotion – partly in response to ongoing and rapid industrialisation, and also as a rejection of the rigidity of thinking and morality that was brought about during the Enlightenment.
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Opened as a museum in 1987, it’s housed inside a very French-looking little pavilion building originally built at the height of Romanticism in the 1830s.
It was home to popular painter Ary Scheffer, who used to host salons (social gatherings) attended by some of the most significant artists and writers of the nineteenth century, including Charles Dickens, Chopin, and Eugène Delacroix. Works from Scheffer and many of his contemporaries are now on display in the same rooms they used to drink in. Pretty cool, right?
In 2013, the museum was brought into public ownership, and its permanent exhibitions have been free to visit since then. When it reopens this February, there’ll be a fresh layout for the permanent collection and an exhibition celebrating the ‘overlooked pioneer of French Romantic landscape painting’ Paul Huet.
After its Valentine’s launch, the gallery will be open from 10am to 6pm every day except Monday, when it will be shut. The Huet exhibition – Face au Ciel (Facing the Sky) – will be on until August 31 2026.
Discover ’s pick of the best Paris exhibitions this year.
Did you see that the Louvre is hiking its entry fee for non-European tourists from this week?
Plus: This free immersive installation in Paris is the best new thing to do in the world this year – here’s why.
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