Five kilometres east of St-Denis, a short hop up the A1 motorway, is Le Bourget airport. Until the development of Orly in the 1950s it was Paris's principal airport and is closely associated with the exploits of France's pioneering aviators – Lindbergh landed here after his epic first flight across the Atlantic.Today Le Bourget is used only for internal flights, while some of the older buildings have been turned into a museum of flying machines, the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace (Tues–Sun: May–Oct 10am–6pm; Nov–April 10am–5pm; €6). It consists of five adjacent hangars and a large exhibition space, the Grande Galerie, with displays ranging from early flying machines through to the latest spacecrafts. The first set of displays, dedicated to the Montgolfier brothers, inventors of the first successful hot-air balloon, shows society going balloon crazy. Displays of aeroplanes begin in the Grande Galerie: the first contraption to fly 1km, the first cross-channel flight, the first aerobatics . . . successes and failures are all on display here.
At Drancy, near Le Bourget airport, the Germans and the French Vichy regime had a transit camp for Jews en route to Auschwitz – this was where the poet Max Jacob, among many others, died. A cattle wagon and a stone stele in the courtyard of a council estate commemorate the nearly 100,000 Jews who passed through here. Only 1518 returned.
The Grande Galerie also showcases World War I planes, while highlights of World War II aircraft are housed along with the first Concorde prototype in the Hall Concorde. Hangars C and D cover the years from 1945 to the present day with France's high-tech achievements represented by the super-sophisticated, best-selling Mirage fighters and two Ariane space-launchers, Ariane I and the latest, Ariane V (both parked on the tarmac outside). Hangar E contains light and sporty aircraft and Hangar F, nearest to the entrance, is devoted to space, with rockets, satellites, space capsules, and the like. Some are mock-ups, some the real thing. Among the latter are a Lunar Roving Vehicle, the Soyuz craft in which a French astronaut flew and France's own first successful space rocket. Everything is accompanied by extremely good explanatory panels – though in French only. To get to the Musée de L'Air et de l'Espace from Paris, take RER line B from Gare du Nord to Gare du Bourget, then bus #152 to Le Bourget/Musée de l'Air. Alternatively, take bus #350 from Gare du Nord, Gare de l'Est and Porte de la Chapelle, or #152 from Porte de la Villette.
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