Thionville – Musée de la Tour aux Puces

It’s too hot today. The sun is shining, there are no clouds and the temperature is too high. So that means the outside must be avoided and museums found which are shady and cool.

This museum actually transpired not to be as cold I had hoped, but it was a welcome respite from the global warming issues of outside. Literally meaning ‘the museum of the Flea Tower’, parts of this building date to the eleventh century. Today, this is used as the town’s municipal museum.

From the first century, a Roman dedication to the God of Mercury. It’s the first time that I’ve realised that the Mercure hotel chain, part of Accor, means Mercury….

I’m slightly puzzled by the restraints, but the building was used as a military prison, so perhaps there is some link with that.

The view down inside the main part of the building from the top floor.

It’s a rather complex building with staircases and doors all over the place….. It reminds me of the Excalibur hotel in Las Vegas, a place that I miss very much.

An early Thionville document.

A map showing the early fortifications of Thionville.

More evidence of the number of different levels in the building and the steps to get to them.

There were a couple of skeletons on display at the museum, this one is from the prehistoric period.