Musée d'Aquitaine — Attraction in Bordeaux

There are some really great and beautiful and important things in this museum. I learned some things about Bordeaux and the region.

The design and texts for the exhibits really need an update. This was particularly notable in the section about the trans-Atlantic slave trade, which has some deeply unfortunate language (at least in the English texts). Though the exhibits drew important connections between slavery and colonial goods, European wealth, and the Revolution, they were marred by some of their outdated vocabulary.

Also surprising was the lack of emphasis on mediæval Aquitaine, which the museum's site says is an important focus but which was really a sideline. This is what it is: they have to show the collection they have. But for the many of us whose primary association with Aquitaine is Eleanor of Aquitaine (and thus troubadours, grand mediæval dynasties, the position of women in mediæval Europe, etc. ...) there is not very much to sink your teeth into. I wish I had understood more clearly from the museum's website how small a focus would be on this period.

Though some of the non-European artifacts in the collection were effectively integrated into the exhibits about slavery and colonialism, many were left by the side, a clear afterthought though they were drawn from all over the globe.

I was in Bordeaux for about 36 hours: time for about one museum among all the other exploring I wanted to do. I left feeling that I had chosen the wrong museum.

(Also: I don't expect a museum in France to have text everywhere in any language but French. But I found it weird how inconsistent the presence of English and Spanish...

While the Musée d'Aquitaine has an impressive collection, the overall organization and labeling left much to be desired. I’ve visited many of the world’s major museums, and this one left my father and I confused. The majority of the rooms were out of historical order, and many had randomly placed older objects without any clear context or explanation. This made it difficult to follow the museum's timeline and understand the connections between the exhibits.

At the end of the museum, there are a number of modern exhibits, mostly focused on ecological issues and microclimates in France and the surrounding area. While these topics are interesting, they felt somewhat disconnected from the historical exhibits earlier in the museum.

I used the Google Translate app, which helped, but the museum itself didn’t leave a strong impression. We also noticed too late that there seemed to be a self-guided audio tour, but we didn’t see the stickers for it until after we had paid and entered the museum, beyond the lobby. I imagine having access to the audio guide would have made the experience...

A must see while you're in Bordeaux. An absolutely fantastic museum with tens of thousands of years of history inside. It's incredibly cheap to get in (for me it was 6 Euros on general admission) and to be honest that was a bargain, I spent over 2 hours there and could have easily spent more time there. The only downside was the lack of Non French translations on many of the exhibits. Some have English and Spanish translations though so it does look like they're trying to put translations on everything but these things take time and can't be done overnight. I can read some French so I had a general idea of what the exhibits were but I fully understand that not everyone will be like that, but like I say it does look like the museum is trying to put translations on everything. Something that is really amazing which the museum has done is put little QR scanners on so you can see a computerised image in 3D, it's really useful when it is a larger item which would be impossible for the average human to pick up...