Musée de la piscine, Roubaix

Really nice day trip to Roubaix. This museum has been on my bucket-list almost since it opened in 2001. The building, renovated by the same architect (Jean-Paul Philippon) who transformed the Gare d'Orsay into a museum, is really interesting with many reminders of its original function (see extras). The collection is also excellent, from the marble of Camille Claudel's La petite châtelaine to some fun genre paintings by Rémy Cogghe, an artist who lived most of his life in Roubaix. We timed our visit to catch the temporary exhibition on Maillol and really enjoyed it too - it stressed how versatile he was, working in everything from paint, to textiles, to printing and then coming to sculpture later in his career. I was happy to see Judith Cladel's book on Maillol cited in one of the panels.


After the museum and lunch, we did a long walk down the very interesting rue de Lannoy to see the Roubaix velodromes, both the outdoor site of the finish of the Paris-Roubaix spring classic and the indoor "Stab". We clocked 23k steps by the end of the day!