The story
The museum in Boulogne-sur-Mer sits inside a 13th-century castle with round towers and a moat, built for the counts of Boulogne, and its collections are as unexpected as the setting. Opened in 1825, it holds close to 450 Greek vases, the largest such collection in France after the Louvre.
It also has a strong Egyptian department, helped along by a local connection: Auguste Mariette, the archaeologist who founded Egypt's antiquities service, was born in the town. Stranger still is a set of ceremonial masks from Kodiak Island in Alaska, carved from driftwood by Sugpiaq makers in the 19th century, which is among the most important groups of its kind anywhere.
Paintings and a stretch of Roman-era wall fill out the rooms, so a single visit runs from a mummy to Grecian urns to a French portrait gallery.
