Worn to a sensuous lustre by generations of skilled hands, the 11,000 hand tools on display here – each designed to perform a single, specialised task with exquisite efficiency – bring to life a world of manual skills made obsolete by the Industrial Revolution. The collection is housed in the magnificent Renaissance-style Hôtel de Mauroy, built in 1556. Videos show how the tools were used and what they were used for. A catalogue in English is available at the reception.
Maison de l’Outil et de la Pensée Ouvrière
Top choice in Troyes
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
0.15 MILES
Half-timbered houses – some with lurching walls and floors that aren’t quite level – line many streets in the old city, rebuilt after a devastating fire…
0.55 MILES
Housed in a 16th- to 18th-century bishop’s palace, this place owes its existence to all those crocodile-logo shirts, whose global success allowed Lacoste…
Cathédrale St-Pierre et St-Paul
0.56 MILES
All at once imposing and delicate with its filigree stonework, Troyes' cathedral is a stellar example of champenoise Gothic architecture. The flamboyant…
0.09 MILES
This haunted-looking, Renaissance-style mansion shelters a twinset of unique museums. The Musée de l’Art Champenois is a repository for the evocative…
0.17 MILES
Off rue Champeaux (between Nos 30 and 32), a stroll along tiny ruelle des Chats (Alley of the Cats), as dark and narrow as it was four centuries ago – the…
0.23 MILES
Troyes’ oldest and most interesting neighbourhood church has an early Gothic nave and transept and a Renaissance-style choir and tower. The highlights…
27 MILES
The Atelier Renoir has displays zooming in on the hallmarks of Renoir’s work (the female form, the vibrant use of colour and light), alongside original…
0.29 MILES
Begun in 1262 by the Troyes-born Pope Urban IV, whose father’s shoemaker shop once stood on this spot, this church is exuberantly Gothic both inside and…
Nearby Troyes attractions
0.06 MILES
Faded with age and all the more enigmatic for it, this Renaissance-style, cruciform church, with its barrel-vaulted wood ceiling, is a great place to see…
0.09 MILES
This haunted-looking, Renaissance-style mansion shelters a twinset of unique museums. The Musée de l’Art Champenois is a repository for the evocative…
0.15 MILES
Half-timbered houses – some with lurching walls and floors that aren’t quite level – line many streets in the old city, rebuilt after a devastating fire…
0.17 MILES
Off rue Champeaux (between Nos 30 and 32), a stroll along tiny ruelle des Chats (Alley of the Cats), as dark and narrow as it was four centuries ago – the…
0.23 MILES
Troyes’ oldest and most interesting neighbourhood church has an early Gothic nave and transept and a Renaissance-style choir and tower. The highlights…
0.29 MILES
Begun in 1262 by the Troyes-born Pope Urban IV, whose father’s shoemaker shop once stood on this spot, this church is exuberantly Gothic both inside and…
7. Monument aux Enfants de l'Aube
0.32 MILES
Erected in 1890, this flag-bedecked memorial, topped by a fleeing woman and child, pays tribute to those who died in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870.