Before it was developed, the area was once a remote rural getaway for people like the romantic writer Chateaubriand and Colbert, the mighty finance minister under Louis XIV.
You can visit their old homes, which both have delightful grounds and are kept as museums. Paris is always close by and RER will take you to Notre Dame Cathedral in exactly 30 minutes. This route runs straight south of the city, so we'll give you a few ideas for the left bank of the Seine just a quick ride on public transport. Discover the best things to do in Massy.
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1. Église Sainte-Marie-Madeleine
The ancient pilgrimage route, the Way of St James, passed through Massy on its long journey to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. In France, many people begin their 1448-kilometer trek from the Tour Saint-Jacques in Paris.
Traditionally pilgrims would have stopped in Massy to worship at this church, which took heavy damage during the Allied bombing of Massy in the Second World War. The only part of the original structure still here is the 13th-century bell-tower, preserved now as a monument next to a new church that went up in the 1950s.
2. Opéra de Massy
Massy has the only opera house in the Île-de-France Region outside Paris. There’s dance, theatre, literary recitals, music as well as operas like Tosca, Turandot, Faust, and Così fan Tutte in the last few years.
It has a church-like location, opened in 1993 at a cost of 172 million francs. And if you want to know more, you can book a guided tour with the Massy travel office, literally going behind the scenes, visiting the rehearsal stage and orchestra pit.
3. Local Sights
Massy isn't full of blockbuster milestones, but if you find yourself in the suburbs, you can get through a fun morning picking. Before it was built after the war, Massy was a rural getaway for some kind Parisians like the historian Fustel de Coulanges.
Another was the vaunted surgeon Jacques-René Tenon who helped advance hygiene in the city’s hospitals and whose stately mansion at 66 Rue de Versailles is still standing. Château du Haut and La Cimade are two such residences, both private but worthy of your attention from the outside.
In the 20th century, Massy was equipped with some outstanding modern sculptures and one must look for is Raymond Moretti, Aroust de Lumière since 1989.
4. Centre Culturel Paul B
If the Opéra de Massy is for high culture, the Centre Culturel Paul B is a stylish new performing arts center where you can discover fresh musical talent. New artists share bills with touring bands, all in a comfortable, hip environment.
Whether you like jazz, indie, hip hop, world music or any kind of rock music, it's worth checking out what's in store. The venue has been devised with acoustics in mind and has a large auditorium that can hold just shy of 1,000 punters.
There is also a more intimate clubhouse for 400 where you can explore upcoming artists from this international region of Paris.
5. Parc de Sceaux
The local suburb of Sceaux was chosen by Louis XIV’s minister of finance Jean-Baptiste Colbert for his residence. His castle was later destroyed to be replaced by a revival mansion by Louis XIII in the Second Empire.
But the park around it follows the same plan as to when it was landscaped by the prodigious André Le Nôtre who made his name at Versailles. The park has rigid geometry, topiaries trimmed to precision and the same sort of overwhelming scale that you get at Versailles.
Avenues intersect the lawns and disappear into the distance, while the Grand Canal is more than a kilometer in length and fed by the Cascades, a terraced fountain descending from the château.
6. Musée du Domaine Départemental de Sceaux
The castle and its annex are a unique museum, with art from the Paris School and majestic architecture. The Pavillon d’Aurore is one of the few fragments of Colbert’s original 17th-century château and was decorated by the brilliant Charles le Brun, who also worked on Versailles.
The orangery preserves the sculptures that decorated the grounds in Colbert’s time. And the newer 19th-century house is an art gallery with paintings, ceramics, and furniture.
There are over 400 landscapes from the 1800s by the likes of Georges Michel, Albert Lebourg and Constant Troyon, and some 950 early photographs by Eugène Atget, Félix Martin-Sabon and Charles Lansiaux.
7. Maison de Chateaubriand
Known at the time as Vallée-aux-Loups, this hotel was a retreat from the political scene in Paris for a politician who became the writer François-René de Chateaubriand. He moved here with his wife Céleste in 1807 and was very attached to the house and its gorgeous park.
Inside the home where he also wrote his memoirs, there’s an exhibition about his work, some personal effects, and paintings from the era. The 56-hectare grounds reflect Chateaubriand’s passion for travel and botany, featuring 500 species of trees and shrubs.
In addition, part of the property is the idyllic Vertle Verte, which has the heritage of cultural figures from poet Jules Barbier to artist Jean Fautrier.
8. Marché International de Rungis
Set your alarm and get over to the suburb of Rungis, where the largest wholesale market on the planet does business. The numbers involved at this 234-hectare complex are almost mind-bending: 13,000 people work here each day when some 26,000 vehicles enter the site.
You can guess that this is not the place to buy your groceries, but a sophisticated, sophisticated machine that helps put food on a restaurant table in Paris. You can book a guided visit as an individual or in a group, and the first tours start at 04:30, so it’s one for the early risers.
9. Paris Catacombs
No more than 20 minutes on the RER is an ossuary where the bones of some six million Parisians are stacked in decorative arrangements. And while these tunnels and galleries lined with bones and skulls may seem frivolous in a creepy sort of way, they came about as an answer to a crisis gripping the city in the 1700s.
Because of cave-ins and plain lack of space, Paris was unable to bury its, so the cemeteries were cleared, and historic burials were moved to these former quarries in what is now the 14th Arrondissement.
10. Tour Montparnasse
Queuing for the Eiffel Tower and then jostling to enjoy the view from the platforms is one of the downsides to visiting Paris. So if the time is high, or you want to see the Paris skyline actually include the Eiffel Tower, Tour Montparnasse is the answer.
The view from the top of this 210-meter skyscraper may well be the best in the city, not least because this hulking black slab of a tower isn’t part of it. During the day, the vistas are raised, and at night, when the Eiffel Tower is illuminated, they are as romantic as possible.
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