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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Behind the pink curtain, Au Bonheur du Jour, an art gallery of erotic archives.

Indents in the pavement are all that remain from a grisly death machine in Paris.

19th century pendulum and a clock restored by a rogue group of guerilla artists.

France's national museum of scientific and industrial instruments.

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

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

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

High atop the Eiffel Tower is a small apartment built exclusively to entertain the science elite and make the rest of Paris jealous.

One of the oldest medical collections in Europe focusing on rare surgical instruments.

A museum of carnival attractions where you are invited to ride the rides.

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