Places lemonkid Wants to Go

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

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

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

A modern-day Lascaux cave underneath Paris.

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

One of the last umbrella repair shops in Paris upholds the nostalgic art of umbrella making.

A unrivaled and rather horrifying collection of wax dermatological models.

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

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.

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

How did a French journalist’s grave become the sexiest statue in the cemetery?

The first green space constructed on an elevated viaduct.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Egyptian Revival movie palace abandoned for decades and restored in 2013.

Site of a classic 19th-century physics experiment to prove the earth is rotating.

A surrealist timepiece by the artist of melting clocks.

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