History and natural science museums France

The Var is one of the few French departments to have a Natural History Museum dedicated to the development of its natural heritage. It allows us to discover in its permanent exhibitions the natural Riches of Toulon and Var through the various disciplines that make up the Earth and Life Sciences. The challenge is to raise public awareness of the diversity of spécimens specimens (27 000 insects listed), herpétologie (61 species) and mammologie (of the 250 terrestrial mammals represented, 70 are present in Var). In its collections, the museum has 978 species of birds, many of which are present in this department which is among the richest in France (167 breeding bird species). With a palette of about 2500 plants, the flora of Var is also one of the most notable in France. The museum also gathers windows dedicated to Prehistory, mineralogy, ethnology or paleontology, allowing the observation of a skeleton of ptérosaure, fossils and remarkable agrarian tools.

Greeted by a giant granite pot, the visitor plunges into the origins of the planet. On 3 levels, 3 000 minerals and 500 petrographic rocks for a voyage from the Urals to Limousin, passing through Madagascar and Saudi Arabia. Local mining production (gold, wolfram, uranium, kaolin) is also represented. In the lower room, the most imposing rocks appear to float in space. On the first floor, minerals are classified by family and scientific category. The space Jean Ventenat (the name of the former teacher) presents the collection of the latter: more than 1 600 specimens including exceptional parts from the Ambazac Mountains, the old mine of Chaillac (in the Indre) and all the Limousin, gathered for over 50 years. In a very different area, the museum also opened a space dedicated to the humanist photographer Izis refugee in Ambazac during World War II. Sixty-one of his photographs are exhibited. It also discovered its reconstituted laboratory as well as the portraits of the Resistance resistance, photographed by Izis in 1944.

The Abbaye du Val des Choues is an island in the middle of the Châtillonnais forest and falls under the great religious movement of the West of the 11th and 12th centuries. This building has as an authorizing officer Eudes III, duke of Burgundy in 1193. Inspired by Cistercian and Benedictine rules, Val des Choues scatters up to seventeen monasteries throughout Europe. Inès and Michel Monot invite you to come and join them to discover the boar hunting in their new museum opened in July 2017. Beyond its dramaturgy, you discover the history of hunting in the "Curograph of the equivalence of things and of the beings, animals and humans". The room of the temptation of trophies, echoes, silence, hallali, the workshop of the tailor and the opera of nature have been arranged in the Abbey with the contribution of contemporary artists. Every day, at 4 pm in the high season, do not miss the spectacular soup of dogs. The 150 dogs of tricoloured English-French breed by the crew Pique'avant-Bourgogne are waiting in silence for their master's signal. You will enjoy the gardens where Inès Monot offers basins, vases, flower boxes and Medici style sculptures to decorate your garden. During the season, two guest rooms are available.