Spinning silently in the lobby of an Art Deco masterwork is a massive vintage model of the Earth.

This historic address is home to the beloved ball and is an almost totally empty building among the most expensive real estate in the world.

This Manhattan skyscraper is a reminder of the brief but glorious age of urban air taxis.

This Fifth Avenue church has long been the favored worshiping place of Broadway actors and vaudeville performers.

This subterranean oyster house has been the pearl of Grand Central Station since 1913.

This morbid scene depicts the Darwinian drama of death on the African savannah.

This impressive scene portrays the elusive forest giraffe of Central Africa.

This magnificent herd of stampeding elephants has been frozen in time for over a century.

Here be dragons.

One of the most dazzling dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History is also one of the oldest.

Creating this diorama spurred naturalist Carl Akeley to begin advocating to protect the apes.

An eerie diorama that captures the majestic nature of a few prehistoric-looking beasts.

This taxidermy scene brings the struggle for survival in the Indian jungle to a quiet corner of a Manhattan museum.

This poignant display is now a memorial to these regionally extinct species.

Outstanding taxidermy dioramas showcase the grandeur of the continent's wildlife with spooky realism.

This iconic Parisian bookstore doubles as the "Tumbleweed Hotel" for traveling writers.

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

The very center of Paris is surrounded by a bevy of strange good luck rituals.

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

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

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

The narrowest street in Paris.

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.