The Argonaute submarine was the French navy's pride and joy in the 1950's.

This structure atop a craggy cliff in one of the most beautiful parks in Paris boasts an unbeatable view.

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

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

This banal Parisian entranceway is not what it seems.

The narrowest street in Paris.

A Parisian exterminator's shop whose storefront displays stuffed rats hanging from traps.

Natural history museum celebrating biodiversity with a parade of taxidermy animals.

A modern-day Lascaux cave underneath Paris.

Walk through spectacular aisles of hanging meat and wagon wheel–sized cheese at the world's largest wholesale food market.

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

The subterranean "lake" below the Paris opera house inspired the Phantom of the Opera's lair.

This innocuous-seeming building is actually the remnant of a major wartime brothel.

This recessed garden protects thousands of mountain plants by creating its own microclimates.

This Parisian gem is one of the most incredible ethnographic museums in the world.

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

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

Architect Le Corbusier built his friend a cubist house to match his impressive collection of cubist art.

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

The former home of France's controversial pop maestro is almost completely covered in ever-changing tributes and graffiti.

An iconic and eccentric bar for "Manouche" Jazz music keeps expanding its space—and its influence.

The first green space constructed on an elevated viaduct.

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

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