The first day of my trip started at the end of May and finished in early June. It started with an overnight flight from Detroit to Paris. Hope springs eternal that one will sleep on the plane, but in fact I got perhaps 1-2 hours of bad half-sleep despite taking Ativan for my existential terror of flying, since according to my body clock the flight landed in Paris at about 1:30 am and I had recently gotten into the very problematic habit of staying up until 5 am or so. I think Joseph did a little bit better. So in Paris terms we arrived on time around 7:30 am and once we'd gotten our baggage and made it through border control (he sailed through, I ended up in a big line of people whose passport wouldn't work with the fancy new self-scanning system) it was still much too early. The plan was to take the high-speed train to the small village of Dolancourt in le Grand Est, but I had been too late making trip preparations, resulting in the earlier trains all being booked up. As a result we were stuck in Paris until 4:30 pm or so.

This turned out to be a case in which my error actually improved the trip. A month or so before the trip, I had happened to stumble upon the Web site for le Musée des Arts Forains (Museum of Fairground Art) and to my surprise, I saw that they had a salon carousel. To understand why this is important, you have to know something of my history as a carousel enthusiast. Though I was fascinated by them since I was a child, my most formative early influence was a coffee table book my father offered to buy for me when we saw it in the bookstore at Briarwood Mall when I was in high school: Fairground Art by Geoff Weedon and Richard Ward. I marked many pages of this book that had my favorite figures in it, and some of those bookmarks are still in my copy, which now is rabbit-chewed and falling apart. Unlike every other carousel coffee table book I have subsequently acquired, this one gives equal time to the American, British, and European carving shops. Most American carousel enthusiasts are only really familiar with the American carvers. Because of Weedon and Ward, I became an appreciator of European figures, particularly those of French manufacturer Gustav Bayol. Today, I own a single antique carousel figure: a small Bayol rabbit.

From Fairground Art, I also learned of the existence of salon carousels, and became fascinated by the idea of them, though I had never seen one nor hoped to. Salon carousels had a brief, glorious heyday in Europe around the end of the 19th century. They were ornate, often rococo-styled platform carousels (with the figures supported from underneath instead of hanging from an overhead mechanism on poles). They would have enormous, grandiose facades, adorned and flanked by carved figures. These would serve as doorways to an interior (I think it was most often actually a tent) in which one would find not just the carousel but a seating area, a bar, and other entertainments. Streamers and confetti would blow around inside. These amazing carousels actually traveled Europe, carted around by showmen. There are almost none extant today. I only knew of three, one of which I have now visited (at de Efteling in the Netherlands), though it is lacking its facade. I was shocked to discover a fourth I did not know about, at a private museum in Paris.

I was kicking myself because I had not planned us any time in Paris, since our destinations were in other parts of the country and I was trying to keep the trip relatively short for the sake of money and my garden. But the long layover presented the possibility: what if we visit the Musée des Arts Forains during that immense block of time we need to kill? It wouldn't be that far on the Metro from the train station we needed to get to anyway, and there is luggage storage at the train station.

So we decided that we may as well go be exhausted at the museum as in Gare de l'Est, and booked a timed tour (the only way to gain admission). The tour was in French (with a few English words thrown in here and there for the benefit of a few Americans and English people in the tour group) but they provided us with a booklet in English. That hardly mattered to me, though, because I really just wanted to see everything. Much of it I already knew about. There was stuff everywhere, much more than the tour actually covered. There were many French and German carousel figures (including a Bayol rabbit, cousin to mine but a larger model, hanging from the ceiling), and a lot of non-carousel carnival art too.

During the tour, we got to listen to an enormous dance-hall band organ, play a roll-a-ball horse-race carnival game (but an exceptionally large and beautiful one), and ride three carousels. One was a strange little platform carousel consisting almost entirely of gondolas (plus a couple of child-sized animal figures). I don't know what the story was behind it, but to me it appeared to be a home-grown construction made by putting together the gondolas from a lot of other carousels. The next was the much-anticipated salon carousel. They did not have the facade, at least not on display, though they had a vintage photograph of it. They did have the very large horse-and-rider statues that would have been put out front.

The final one was the biggest surprise of all. I gasped when I realized what I was seeing. I had seen a vintage photo of it (or one like it) in my book all those years ago, but I had no idea it was still extant, let alone that I would ever ride it. It was a velocipede carousel from 1897. Instead of horses, everyone sits on a bicycle. Instead of a steam engine, the power comes from everyone pedaling. We got to ride it, after being given some firm rules and warnings by the docent: children can't pedal, they can only sit in the passenger seats. The pedals are slippery (in fact they were round, metal pegs), so if you lose them, do not try to get them back, just put your feet up out of the way. The ride is fast, she said in English, but it is not comfortable. This was true, yet it was one of the best things I did on this trip. When she gave us the go ahead, the 12 or so adults in the group all began pedaling like maniacs. If you're familiar with Cedar Downs (racing derby carousel) at Cedar Point, it got at least that fast and I think probably faster, but with the added excitement of being on a precarious little bicycle seat. Near the end of our ride I did lose the pedals and immediately saw why you weren't supposed to try to get them back. Since everyone else is still pedaling and it's fixed gear, the pedals just continue going at full speed and if you try to put your foot back you just get whack-whack-whacked.

Sadly at the end of the tour the tour guide politely but firmly escorts everyone out and the gate gets closed behind you; there's no lingering to look at stuff as the next group comes in (though Joseph tried, which resulted in his missing out on the one chance we had all day to use a free bathroom). My exhaustion was beginning to creep up on me now, as it was around 3 pm which made it about 9 am on my body clock. We then had to navigate the altogether too many stairs involved in getting to the train station on the Metro, and then wait for a while in a station with far too few sitting areas. But eventually we were on the very fast train heading for le Grand Est and, ultimately, our hotel in Dolancourt.

I'll conclude this installment of my trip report there.


This figure may have originally ridden a carousel. Centaur figures were popular at one time.


Our tour group and our very energetic tour guide.


A European carousel horse – I think French but I am not that skilled at recognizing the different styles of European horses.


A Bayol rabbit!


The docent explaining how to play the roll-a-ball game. I needed no explanation, as I always loved these.




A 1970s roll-a-ball horse race game.


The odd gondola carousel. That mermaid figure would actually have originally been a carousel figure as like centaurs, mermaids were made by some carvers for a while.


A juvenile cat figure on the gondola carousel.


The British carver Spooner made a bunch of centaurs with the front end representing heroes of the Boer War (of all things). There is another centaur in this style at the Merry-Go-Round Museum in Sandusky, but they have restored it. The preference in Europe is generally to leave figures unrestored, which is definitely different from the American collectors' preference.


One of the gigantic figures flanking the entrance of the salon carousel.


The salon carousel.


The tour guide presenting the velocipede carousel.