The celebrated eyesore created by starry-eyed sweethearts.

The largest refracting telescope in Europe is housed on the grounds of a former French castle.

This facility has manufactured stunning tapestries for France's royalty ever since the 17th century.

An astounding collection of taxidermy, fossils, skeletons, and even a few strange live beasts.

The ruins stand as a somber reminder of France’s worst civil catastrophe of the 20th century.

Immortalized by artists, this church incorporates a medieval lighthouse into its shoreside structure.

This triumphal arch celebrating the Sun King's conquest of Lille is a masterpiece of military architecture.

Longest canal tunnel in the world, abandoned in the 1960s.

This enormous "cloth of the conquest" depicts the Norman invasion of England in mind-blowing detail.

Tables of secondhand books fill the inner courtyard of this 17th-century stock exchange.

An Orthodox church built by the Royal Family for the Russian community exiled to the French Riviera.

This crumbling, graffiti-covered mansion sits tantalizingly within reach of the proletariat who frequent a public park.

This bridge was constructed from the rubble of the infamous Bastille.

Museum in a swimming pool where the water still flows.

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

Museum on French naval history, with magnificent figureheads, a historic diving suit, and a boat used by Napoleon.

The mental institution where Van Gogh created some of his most famous work now allows guests to walk in the artist's footsteps.

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

The water-powered carriages are long gone, but for over a century this funicular railway has been the fastest route to the highest point in Paris.

The ruins of a Duke's bucolic dream, where camels once roamed alongside "Dutch" windmills and faux-Italian vineyards.

This statue was given to France by the United States to commemorate the centennial of the French Revolution.

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

An "inside out" building in the historical center of Paris, featuring Europe’s largest modern art museum.

This massive library holds what was once the largest book collection in the world.