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

Exquisite wall sculptures carved in secret by an early quarryman in an obscure corner of the Paris Catacombs.

This Parisian fountain is a little bit fantasy and a little bit nightclub.

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

Paris' fabled purveyor of exotic taxidermy and natural history curios.

A majestic lion statue guards this Parisian botanical garden, and feeds on an unsettling item.

A subterranean shelter remains intact under a busy Paris railway station.

The history of radiation is on safe display at the foot of a radiation science laboratory.

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

Down a cobblestone alleyway is a museum dedicated to Romanticism, with a secret garden.

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

A museum on the history of Paris, including a set of Napoleon's toiletries, Proust's room, and relics of the Revolution.

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

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

Egyptian Revival movie palace abandoned for decades and restored in 2013.

A Parisian cemetery where the elite and artistic are interred beneath an eccentric collection of tombs.

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

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

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

France's national museum of scientific and industrial instruments.

A surrealist timepiece by the artist of melting clocks.

Walk upon the mementos of the dead in this Parisian courtyard paved with medieval tombstones.

A mechanized clock where a man fights off a dragon, crab, and rooster.

A scandalous Art Nouveau collaboration that set Paris all atwitter at the turn of the century.