Places hughdonogh Wants to Go

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

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

The oldest and smallest cemetery in Paris is only open to the public twice a year.

One of the oldest masonic museums in Paris.

The spiral staircase hidden inside this giant Parisian column was likely built for Catherine de Medici's astrologer.

Saintly bones pressed into a wax effigy of a Catholic superstar.

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

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

The floorboard scrawling of a tragic madman is on public display outside a Paris hospital, much to the dismay of its opponents.

Despite being considered a thoroughly American sport, basketball's oldest surviving playing field is found in the basement of a Paris YMCA.

A 16th-century fountain marks the site of a lost medieval cemetery once filled with mass graves.

Got apples?

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

The headless bodies of more than 1,300 guillotined victims of the Reign of Terror are buried here in mass graves.

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

This museum in a Paris apartment gives a unique look at the iconic French singer's life.

The recovered bones of martyrs slaughtered during The Terror are on display in this church crypt.

This Paris art space celebrates the creativity and ingenuity that springs from abject poverty, especially in Africa.

An off-the-beaten-path boutique stuffed with an eclectic collection of upcycled goods.

This banal Parisian entranceway is not what it seems.

A popular shrine where the Blessed Virgin allegedly appeared in 1830, displaying a holy armchair and two incorruptible remains of Lady Saints.

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

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

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