Solférino: origin of the name and station history
Served by: metro line 12.
Why this name?
A line 12 station in the 7th arrondissement, under boulevard Saint-Germain, at rue de Bellechasse, it owes its name to rue de Solférino, which commemorates the battle of Solferino, fought in the Italian commune of that name. It opened with the first section of Nord-Sud line A, between Porte de Versailles and Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. Its subtitle « Musée d'Orsay », added after the museum opened in 1986, does not appear on the platforms, and the museum is less than 300 metres away.
Anecdote
With Porte de la Chapelle, it is one of only two stations on line 12 to have kept the original Nord-Sud style on its platforms, without ever being renovated identically: brown ceramics with interlaced « NS » letters, bevelled white tiles from the Boulenger tile works of Choisy-le-Roi, and the directions Montmartre and Montparnasse on the tympana. On an April Fool's day, the RATP renamed it « Surférino » (surf) for the 2024 Olympic Games.
Around Solférino
- Musée de la Légion d'Honneur, 220 m away — French insignia, paintings and decorations displayed in the Hôtel de Salm, home to the Légion d'Honneur since 1804.
- Musée d'Orsay, 300 m away — A former railway station turned museum, home to the world's richest collection of Impressionist art.
- Assemblée nationale, 450 m away — The seat of the French Parliament, housed in the Palais Bourbon facing Place de la Concorde.
- Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor, 350 m away — A pedestrian footbridge linking the Musée d'Orsay to the Tuileries Garden across the Seine.