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

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.

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

Pitié-Salpêtrière was the dumping grounds for women who received the dreaded diagnosis of "hysterical."

Skeletons, medical artifacts, and other obscure and precious treasures all displayed in a wooden pharmacist's cabinet.

A unrivaled and rather horrifying collection of wax dermatological models.

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

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

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.

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

Statue of death tucked in the University of Medicine courtyard.

The history of radiation is on safe display at the foot of a radiation science laboratory.

A museum of magic with a Sadist past.

This museum houses an imposing skeleton army comprised of creatures great and small.

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

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

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

A haunting collection of the vanished and disappearing natural world.

A counter-culture bookstore like no other hides in plain sight in the streets of Paris.

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

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

The oldest stone house in Paris was built by its most famous alchemist.

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

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