Behind the pink curtain, Au Bonheur du Jour, an art gallery of erotic archives.

A popular shrine where the Blessed Virgin allegedly appeared in 1830, displaying a holy armchair and two incorruptible remains of Lady Saints.

One of the oldest medical collections in Europe focusing on rare surgical instruments.

Medieval museum built over Roman baths that features famous tapestries of a lady and a unicorn.

Weird wax anatomical models reside here, as do other anatomical specimens.

Known as the "Dodo Manège," this carousel features a herd of animals that have disappeared—or may be gone soon.

This little-known relic crypt holds stolen parts of a Roman Empress.

A unrivaled and rather horrifying collection of wax dermatological models.

This former “ante-chamber to the guillotine” has been refurbished to illustrate the brutal history of French justice.

This museum houses an imposing skeleton army comprised of creatures great and small.

An overlooked marble is the only surviving in-place 18th century example of the measurement that changed how we define distance.

This Parisian café sticks almost exclusively to an ethos of reuse.

A horde of stray cats rule in this secluded Parisian cemetery under a bridge.

This Paris art space celebrates the creativity and ingenuity that springs from abject poverty, especially in Africa.

A magical, macabre wax museum, beloved by locals, uses real artifacts to depict an assassination from the French Revolution.

This off-limits room in the National Library of France is home to a system of pneumatic tubes, once used to bring books to readers.

The recovered bones of martyrs slaughtered during The Terror are on display in this church crypt.

The macabre collection of Jacques Sirgent, an expert scholar on the undead and all of their trappings.

Beggars were miraculously "cured" of their fake ailments when they returned home to this 17th century Paris slum each night.

A favorite Paris bar for U.S. expats, including Gershwin, Hemingway, and James Bond.

Twelve grave-faced marble angels guard the emperor's tomb at Les Invalides.

A 16th-century fountain marks the site of a lost medieval cemetery once filled with mass graves.

Original cabaret handbills, posters, and feline artwork are a purrfect highlight of the Museum of Montmartre.

The storefront of a ramshackle Parisian puppet theater.