This museum-cum-vape shop is, like, cool, dude.

By Brian Carroll

PARIS – A visit to Père Lachaise cemetery, the largest cemetery in the city, is a popular activity for tourists to Paris, albeit one with a touch of the macabre. But where else could you “meet” Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, Frederic Chopin, Maria Callas, and Jim Morrison. And if Morrison is the reason you might make it a stop during your visit, perhaps a brief step in at the Musée du Fumeur, or Museum of Smoking, is just the thing to put you in the mood.

Pictured in front of an peace pipe are Sitting Bull, middle, and Crow King, right. The Native American on the left is not identified.

A small, private boutique museum run by a brother-and-sister duo, Musée du Fumeur is, in fact, more mood than place. On my visit, I met Constance, one of the two proprietors who rescued the 650-square-foot museum and vape shop from dereliction several years ago, a delightful English-speaking Parisian as iconoclastic as she is welcoming. Why a vape shop in front of the museum? “We’re trying to pimp our ride,” Constance explained. Why are there many instances of tribal Native American art throughout the space? “Because we took their shit,” she said. “This is the story of smoke – how we took it and what we did with it.”

It’s a short story. The museum is four rooms, five if you include the toilette, and you should. Inside that tiny space is a gallery of celebrities and notables photographed with the smoking materials of choice. And the room has a wonderful seat from which to gaze at this star-studded constellation that occupies every available wall space.

Perhaps the museum’s most interesting and varied display – the celebrity walls in the tiny toilette.

Elsewhere in the space you will see collections of pipes, bongs, and cultural material related to smoking and its purveyance throughout the ages. One glass-encased display documents “smoking during the resistance.” It’s a step back in time, specifically the 1920s and 1930s, judging by the red velvet, brass, and, in the erstwhile café in the back, the furniture. You will see snuff boxes, hookas, peace pipes, postcards and posters, cartoon strips, and arcana from around the world.

Visitors should also check out the small bookstand in the shop that fronts the museum. It is here you will find homage to Morrison and one of his smoking companions – cannabis. After a perusal there, a little more truly witty conversation with Constance, who returned to her hometown of Paris after running a newspaper in Morocco, you’ll be in the right frame of mind to comingle with the dead. Time will have slowed down to a pace appropriate for a cemetery and for the 11th arrondissement in general.

The Musée du Fumeur at 7 rue Pache in the 11th arrondissement.

Located at 7 rue Pache just a block or so from the Voltaire metro station and Place Léon Blum, the museum charges either 2 euros or whatever spare change you have, and it is open daily except Monday. (I had 90 euro cents, and Constance gave me a lighter as a keepsake.) Be warned: The entirety of the displays is described in French.