An essential stop before plundering, BYO Cutlass.

A collection of 20th-century automata, penny arcade games, and musical contraptions.

A shop full of natural curiosities, carnivorous plants, and costumed taxidermied mice.

Staircase winds down the side of Telegraph Hill through gardens, wild parrots flying overhead.

A favorite haunt of dinosaur loving children and hallucinogen loving hippies alike.

Relics of the 1894 Midwinter Exposition continue to delight visitors today.

San Francisco's newly reopened hands-on science museum.

The seawater playground of gilded-era San Francisco burned to the ground in 1966.

Carnivorous plants, medieval aphrodisiacs, and the largest original wood structure glass conservatory in the western hemisphere.

Get lost in this haunting fairytale art walk through a man-made eucalyptus grove.

Olfactory delights in San Francisco's Botanical Gardens.

There is no trying to fall in love with this Star Wars fountain, you just do or do not.

In all of the 29 years it was in operation, no prisoners ever escaped successfully... or so they claim.

Bring your own cardboard to the slippery slopes of concrete hidden in a neighborhood park.

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

A series of abstract, silly sculptures represent the works of a great modern classical composer.

The Sun King's military models, saved from the Louvre.

This life-size replica of the Statue of Liberty's flame is also a tribute to Princess Diana by default.

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

Dedicated to the art of hunting, with juxtapositions of contemporary art.

Remains of Roman amphitheater hidden in a sleepy quarter of Paris.

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

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

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