Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace (Air and Space Museum), Le Bourget

The Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace is France's national air and space museum, at Paris-Le Bourget airport about 12 kilometres north of central Paris in Seine-Saint-Denis. Visitors can board a Boeing 747 and see two Concordes, Ariane rockets and a Soyuz capsule. It suits families and aviation fans, and visitors under 26 enter the permanent exhibition free.

The museum was set up in 1919 on a proposal by the aeronautical engineer Albert Caquot, which makes it one of the oldest aviation museums in the world. Its halls include the Art Deco airport terminal of 1937, designed by Georges Labro, and the hangars around it, on a site of more than 1.5 square kilometres of land and buildings. Le Bourget has its own place in aviation history: Charles Lindbergh landed the Spirit of St. Louis here on 21 May 1927, after his solo flight from New York, in front of a large crowd. The museum moved onto the airfield in 1975.

19,000 items, from a 1783 Montgolfier medallion on

The collection holds more than 19,000 items, some dating back to the 16th century. Early flight is represented by objects such as a Montgolfier brothers medallion from 1783 and the landing gear of L'Oiseau Blanc, the aircraft lost during a transatlantic attempt in 1927, weeks before Lindbergh's success.

The Concorde hall shows a Concorde prototype beside an Air France Concorde. The prototype, Concorde 001, is closed to visitors because of a technical issue, but the Air France aircraft, Sierra Delta, can be boarded. Visitors can go inside a Boeing 747 and a Douglas C-47 Dakota that served on D-Day. The military rooms include a SPAD VII flown by the First World War ace Georges Guynemer, a Spitfire and a Mirage IV. The space hall displays Ariane 1 and Ariane 5 launchers and the Soyuz T-6 capsule in which the French astronaut Jean-Loup Chrétien flew in 1982. Planète Pilote is an interactive area for children aged 6 to 12, with more than 40 activities in 60-minute sessions held four or five times a day.