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.

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

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

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

135 bronze medallions mark a French meridian line which once rivaled the hotshot Greenwich timeline.

Stroll through retro Paris while shopping for old postcards and discarded doll heads.

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

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

The vast, legendary catacombs hold secrets much stranger than stacked bones.

Notorious artist squat renovated into legal studios.

With a history of slaughter, feast, and famine, remnants of the pork industry decorate this area--even its church.

Noirish green neon marks the location of one of the oldest private detective agencies in France.

This massive library holds what was once the largest book collection in the world.

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

Abandoned railway line circling the city of Paris.

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

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

Experience architect Le Corbusier's modernist design for living in the home he designed for himself.

This bridge was constructed from the rubble of the infamous Bastille.

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

César Baldaccini's iconic sculpture of a 40-foot thumb stands tall in La Défense.