Maison Bonaparte Ajaccio

Maison Bonaparte, the national museum that fills the Bonaparte family house on Rue Saint-Charles in Ajaccio, is one of the few Corsican sights with published, verifiable hours and prices in every season. The museum's own practical-information page gives the full schedule and tariff structure, and this page reports exactly what that page says, nothing more. Ajaccio is the capital of Corsica, the French Mediterranean island with more than 1,000 km of coastline and a mountainous interior, and Napoleon was born in the town, which is why the house beside the bus station carries national-museum status. For the wider town picture, start with the Ajaccio area guide, and for the question of whether the town deserves your days, see Is Ajaccio Worth Visiting.

Corsica itself is a big island in a compact frame: 8,722 km2, the fourth-largest in the Mediterranean, with 360 communes and a highest summit of Monte Cinto at 2,706 m. Ajaccio, its capital, counted 76,320 residents in the 2023 census published in August 2026, making it the island's largest town ahead of Bastia at 46,867. All of that matters for a museum visit only indirectly, but it explains why Ajaccio concentrates the island's most accessible cultural institutions: the town is the administrative centre, the main ferry hub on the west coast and the airport gateway for the south.

What Are The Maison Bonaparte Ajaccio Opening Hours?

Maison Bonaparte in Ajaccio is open every day except Monday, with three seasonal schedules on the museum's own practical-information page. From 1 October to 31 March it opens 10:30 to 12:30 and 13:15 to 16:30; from 1 April to 30 June it opens 10:00 to 12:30 and 13:15 to 17:30; and from 1 July to 30 September it opens continuously 10:00 to 17:30. Last entry is 30 minutes before closing in every period.

The midday closure is the detail that catches people out. From October to June the museum shuts between 12:30 and 13:15, so a late-morning arrival can leave you waiting on Rue Saint-Charles. In the high-summer window of July to September the split disappears and the doors stay open straight through the day. Plan around the last-entry rule too: the page states 30 minutes before closing, and that clock runs against the seasonal closing time, whether 16:30, 17:30 or 17:00 in the middle of the day.

Mondays are closed in all three seasons. That single fact shapes any Ajaccio itinerary, because the town's other headline museum, Palais Fesch, runs a different rhythm: the tourist-office listing for 16 January to 31 December 2026 shows it daily from 09:00 to 17:00, closed only on Christmas Day, New Year's Day and 1 November. A Monday in Ajaccio is therefore a Palais Fesch day, or a boat day, not a Maison Bonaparte day.

The seasonal boundaries also matter if you are travelling at the edges of the year. A visit on 30 June follows the spring schedule with its midday break, while 1 July the next morning switches to the continuous day. Likewise 30 September still enjoys the long summer hours, and 1 October drops back to the winter pattern with the later 10:30 start. Anyone planning around a shoulder-season ferry arrival in Ajaccio should check which side of those two dates the visit falls on, because the two schedules produce very different museum days from one week to the next.

How Much Does Maison Bonaparte In Ajaccio Cost?

Full-price admission to Maison Bonaparte is EUR 10, with EUR 8 for non-EU residents aged 18 to 25 and for large families, and free entry for EU residents under 26, according to the museum's own practical-information page. Proof is required for the free under-26 rate for EU residents. The page lists no other ticket categories, so no other concession is stated here.

The pricing structure rewards knowing your residency status before you queue. EU residents under 26 enter free with proof, while non-EU visitors in the same age band pay the reduced EUR 8, as do large families. Everyone else pays EUR 10. These are the museum's own figures for the national museum, and they are the only figures this page states.

A short walk away, Palais Fesch prices at EUR 10 full, EUR 6 for over-65s and free up to 18, per the Ajaccio tourist-office listing covering 16 January to 31 December 2026. Two adults visiting both museums therefore budget EUR 20 each in museum admission across the town, a figure that follows from the two published tariffs and nothing else. Families with children under 18 will find Palais Fesch the cheaper of the two on paper, since its free band runs to 18 while Maison Bonaparte's free band keys on EU residency under 26 rather than childhood alone. A mixed party of ages and passports should simply read the two tables side by side before setting out.

Where Is Maison Bonaparte And How Do You Reach It?

Maison Bonaparte stands on Rue Saint-Charles in central Ajaccio, 200 m from the bus station and the ferry terminal, and city bus 8 runs there from the airport, according to the museum's practical-information page. That places the museum within a short walk of the port where Corsica Linea and La Méridionale ferries dock from Marseille.

The location is the most convenient of any major Corsican museum. Arrive in Ajaccio by sea and the house is 200 m from the terminal; arrive by air and bus 8 connects the airport to the same part of town. The museum page itself gives both facts, which is why they can be stated plainly here. Ajaccio airport is Ajaccio Napoléon Bonaparte (AJA), one of the island's four airports alongside Bastia Poretta, Figari Sud Corse and Calvi Sainte-Catherine, and the Ajaccio airport guide covers the arrival options in full.

Once in the centre, everything clusters. The museum's position 200 m from the bus station and ferry terminal puts it inside the walkable core that the Ajaccio city tour covers, and the seafront with its boat departures lies in the same band of town. The Îles Sanguinaires sit offshore to the west, reachable on the Sanguinaires boat trip from Ajaccio, which makes a natural afternoon counterpart to a museum morning.

The ferry picture also explains why the museum's position matters to so many visitors. Corsica Linea sails Marseille to Ajaccio, Bastia, Propriano and L'Île-Rousse, La Méridionale sails Marseille to Ajaccio and Porto-Vecchio, and Corsica Ferries serves Ajaccio from Toulon and Nice. More than 8.5 million passengers, excluding cruise passengers, passed through Corsica's ports and airports in 2025 per the ORTC and DREAL annual report, and a large share of them stepped ashore in Ajaccio, minutes from Rue Saint-Charles. A ferry passenger with a free morning can walk off the ship, visit the museum and be back at the terminal before the afternoon sailing, which is a rare combination on an island where the headline sights usually demand a drive.

It suits the same day as the museum, since both anchor the town's Napoleonic theme without needing a car.

How Does Maison Bonaparte Compare With Palais Fesch?

Maison Bonaparte charges EUR 10 full with free entry for EU residents under 26 and is closed Mondays, while Palais Fesch charges EUR 10 full, EUR 6 for over-65s and free up to 18, and is open daily 09:00 to 17:00 except Christmas Day, New Year's Day and 1 November, per the Ajaccio tourist-office listing for 2026. The two museums sit in the same town and fill different days.

The comparison matters because the two houses cover the same family story from different angles, one intimate and domestic, the other a fine-arts collection. What this page can state with certainty is the practical layer, and the practical layer differs sharply on Mondays and on concessions. Palais Fesch admits children up to 18 free and over-65s at EUR 6; Maison Bonaparte's reductions instead target EU residents under 26, non-EU residents aged 18 to 25 and large families. The full index of guides sits on Corsica Travel Guide.

Source note for the figures: Maison Bonaparte's hours and prices come from the national museum's own practical-information page, Palais Fesch's from the Ajaccio tourist-office listing for 16 January to 31 December 2026. Both are stated as published, and neither is extended with details the listings do not carry. One planning consequence follows directly from the two schedules: on the four public-closure days at Palais Fesch, and on any Monday, one of the two museums is unavailable, so a short-stay visitor should lay the town days against the calendar before fixing the itinerary. A seven-day stay will absorb both patterns without effort; a two-day stay needs the check.

What Can You Combine With Maison Bonaparte In Ajaccio?

Maison Bonaparte sits 200 m from the ferry terminal, which makes it a natural anchor for a town day that includes Palais Fesch, the seafront and a boat trip, with the Calanques de Piana reachable as a day trip from Ajaccio. Corte, the old capital in the island's interior, is 1 h 30 by road from Ajaccio per the Musée de la Corse practical page, if the mountains call instead.

Ajaccio works as a base precisely because the town sights and the sea departures share the same shoreline. Beyond the gulf, the red rocks of the Calanques de Piana and the protected waters of the Scandola Nature Reserve sit on the island's west coast, covered in the Calanques de Piana day trip guide.

For the interior alternative, Corte holds the Musée de la Corse inside the citadel, EUR 5.50 full with one ticket covering museum and citadel, and the museum's page publishes road times from five towns. Ajaccio to Corte is 1 h 30, a figure the museum itself gives, which is why it can appear here.

Further afield, the island's headline sights each carry their own published figures: Filitosa opens 1 April to 2 November at EUR 9 adults, the Escalier du Roi d'Aragon in Bonifacio counts 189 steps down the cliff, and the Lavezzi islands lie in the Bouches de Bonifacio Nature Reserve. None is a stop on an Ajaccio museum day, but all reward a second or third day on the island. The Musée de Bastia in the Palais des Gouverneurs runs high-season hours of 10:00 to 18:30 and low-season hours of 09:00 to 12:00 and 14:00 to 17:00 closed Sundays and Mondays, per its own practical page, for anyone basing in the north instead.

The turtle park above is the family-friendly pick near Ajaccio, with skip-the-line admission that suits a slower afternoon once the museums close.

What Is The Weather Like In Ajaccio Through The Year?

Ajaccio has a hot dry summer and a mild wet winter, per the Météo-France station normals for 1991 to 2020 at Campo dell'Oro: July averages 8.6 mm of rain, August a mean daily high of 29.2 °C, and November 111.8 mm of rain, the highest monthly total on the table. October and November carry most of the rain, and snow falls only on the high mountains inland.

The station data gives planners a concrete picture. Summer days run from a June mean high of 25.9 °C to 29.2 °C in August, with July's 8.6 mm the lowest rain figure in the table and sunshine averaging 12.1 hours a day in July. From September the rain climbs: 57.8 mm, then 85.7 mm in October and 111.8 mm in November. Winter mean highs sit between 14.0 °C in January and 15.1 °C in December, mild by continental standards but wet.

For a museum visit this cuts two ways. A rainy November day in Ajaccio is a strong argument for two museums in one town, while a July day with 12.1 hours of average daily sunshine pushes toward the boat trips and beaches. Fire rules apply inland from 15 June to 30 September, when no fires or smoking are allowed in forests, maquis and massifs, a standing summer constraint across the island. The fire-risk map for massif access is updated each evening at 18:00 for the following day, and from mid-June to mid-September access to some massifs can be restricted, which matters for hikers pairing a town day with a mountain day rather than for anyone staying on Rue Saint-Charles.

Two safety numbers complete the picture for any Corsican day out: 112 is the European emergency number, alongside 15 for medical, 17 for police and 18 for fire, and the PGHM mountain-rescue base in Ajaccio can be reached on 04 95 24 24 00. None of these will figure in a museum morning, but a day that starts on Rue Saint-Charles can end on a boat or a trail, and the numbers are simple to carry.

Is Maison Bonaparte Ajaccio Worth The Visit?

For EUR 10 full price, or free for EU residents under 26, Maison Bonaparte offers the island's most centrally located national museum, 200 m from Ajaccio's bus station and ferry terminal and served by bus 8 from the airport, open every day except Monday with published hours in every season. The practical case for visiting is unusually strong; the deeper draw is that Ajaccio is Napoleon's birthplace and the house is the national museum of that story.

Worth is always a reader's call, but the planning facts here are firm. The museum's own page supplies hours, prices and the location details; nothing in this article goes beyond what that page and the other cited listings state. If your visit falls on a Monday, pivot to Palais Fesch or the sea. If it falls in July to September, the continuous 10:00 to 17:30 opening makes scheduling simple. And if the Napoleonic theme is what brings you to Rue Saint-Charles at all, the cave experience with a Corsican meal extends it: read more on the Napoleon's Cave experience page, and Check availability for your dates if the pairing appeals.

Ajaccio also gives the museum visitor something no other Corsican town can: the rest of the Napoleonic layer within walking distance of the house, plus a working port that turns a culture morning into a full island day. The tourist office publishes the Palais Fesch listing, the museum publishes its own schedule, and between the two, a visitor can plan the town's museum circuit down to the hour with nothing left to chance but the weather.

Common Questions About Maison Bonaparte Ajaccio

With its Monday closure, seasonal split hours and residency-based concessions, Maison Bonaparte rewards ten minutes of planning before you set out, and everything you need for those ten minutes is in the tables above, straight from the museum's own practical-information page.