Places mdesilva Wants to Go

A curious collection of locks and keys.

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

A subterranean shelter remains intact under a busy Paris railway station.

The remaining relics of the patroness of Paris lie in a chapel under a striking double spiral staircase.

Architect Le Corbusier built his friend a cubist house to match his impressive collection of cubist art.

One of the oldest masonic museums in Paris.

Two awe-inspiring globes from the reign of the Sun King hang from the ceiling of France's national library.

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.

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

The personal library of the founder of modern neurology is open to visitors.

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

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

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

The former home of France's controversial pop maestro is almost completely covered in ever-changing tributes and graffiti.

This surreal statue brings a famous French novel about a supernatural cad to arresting life.

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

This little-known relic crypt holds stolen parts of a Roman Empress.

In the best of all possible worlds, everyone will get a chance to see this statue in which Voltaire's heart is interred.

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

This statue was given to France by the United States to commemorate the centennial of the French Revolution.

This Parisian café sticks almost exclusively to an ethos of reuse.

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

The first green space constructed on an elevated viaduct.

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