Roughly 17 million letters to Santa have found their way to this Arctic Circle post office.

The tiny, studious rodents greet visitors to the National Archives of Finland.

These enormous, stern-faced statues greet visitors with lanterns, and sometimes costumes.

An abstract monument to a symphonic composer.

Architecturally stunning library serves as the hub of Finnish scholarly life and culture.

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

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

Paris' linguistic guide to the international language of, yes, love.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

A museum which takes visitors to the côté obscure of Paris.

The video game-themed street art first popped up in the French city.

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

This former “ante-chamber to the guillotine” has been refurbished to illustrate the brutal history of French justice.

The narrowest street in Paris.

A surrealist timepiece by the artist of melting clocks.

A colorful piece of contemporary art cheerfully clashes with Lyon's historical architecture.

For hundreds of years, automatons moving to metallic music have been marking the passage of time.

Hundreds of hidden passageways weave through the old quarters of Lyon.