A Museum in Paris with no "art"

We went to England and Paris in August. My kids had never been overseas, and Kat and I hadn't been in fifteen years at least. None of us had ever been to Paris. I won't burden you with all our vacation pictures, so here are just a few from a museum I had never heard of. It was one of my favorite places in Paris.

This is a manhole cover outside the Musee de Arts et Metiers in Paris. He is winking because he probably looks up women's skirts all day.

A box of beautiful wooden geometric shapes, apparently a teaching tool. I coveted it.

Lots of machines in this museum. I love gears.

Me in a space helmet. But not really IN the space helmet.

My son Jacob at the museum's Metro stop. It was all copper, and felt like we were inside Captain Nemo's Nautilus. The whole museum had a Jules Verne-meets-Dumbledore's office feeling.

Most of the objects in the museum had English captions, but not this flying machine. So I have no idea if it was ever flown (the propellers are giant feathers) or even intended to be flown (did I mention the giant feathers?). I loved how the hard science and the fanciful ideas were all in the same museum.

A lion and a serpent made entirely from glass (fiberglass fur and scales). My daughter Olivia is flesh and blood.

Cool clock that I imagine can send you back or forwards in time.

Spy cameras disguised as a gun and a book. Was there a time when a gun was seen as a lesser threat than a camera? "Drop the camera! Oh, never mind, it's only a gun."

A pair of zoetropes.

A phenakistoscope. Yes, I had to look it up.