Claude Monet was baptized in this lavishly ornate Paris church.

The tradition of open-air secondhand and antiquarian bookselling in Paris dates back to the Renaissance.

A historic Christian shrine nestled within a spectacular natural cave.

A spectacular walk on the flank of a gorge.

A magnificent place to see authentic paleolithic cave paintings that are an astounding 33,000 years old.

An out-of-place grove of sequoias thrives in northern Spain.

This beautiful spit of land was once the summer playground of the king of Spain.

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

The Sun King's military models, saved from the Louvre.

The narrowest street in Paris.

The spiral staircase hidden inside this giant Parisian column was likely built for Catherine de Medici's astrologer.

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

The floorboard scrawling of a tragic madman is on public display outside a Paris hospital, much to the dismay of its opponents.

In this Parisian garden's grotesque former life as a zoo it fed exotic animals to the bourgeois and put humans on exhibit.

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

BDSM, 1930s Style.

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

The headless bodies of more than 1,300 guillotined victims of the Reign of Terror are buried here in mass graves.

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.

Hidden away in a modern library are the remains of one of the 18th century's most celebrated wunderkammers.

Two awe-inspiring globes from the reign of the Sun King hang from the ceiling of France's national library.

Where the high court feasted, frolicked, and high courtesans put their royal lovers' diamonds to the test.

A lone cannonball remains lodged in the walls of the Hotel de Sens as a sober reminder of a revolution.

An off-the-beaten-path boutique stuffed with an eclectic collection of upcycled goods.