Places thelonesomeroad Wants to Go

The mystery of the Putim Ossuary involves a tricorn hat.

An Austrian house of bones filled with hundreds of intricately painted skulls.

Structure built from the skulls of vanquished foes.

A church of bones, decorated with 40,000 human skeletons.

A scandalous Art Nouveau collaboration that set Paris all atwitter at the turn of the 20th century.

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

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

A modern-day Lascaux cave underneath Paris.

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

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

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.

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

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

A haunting collection of the vanished and disappearing natural world.

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

Hidden away in a modern library are the remains of one of the 18th century's most celebrated wunderkammers.

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

Statue of death tucked in the University of Medicine courtyard.

Weird wax anatomical models reside here, as do other anatomical specimens.

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

This Parisian fountain is a little bit fantasy and a little bit nightclub.

The largest medical and anatomical collection in France lies hidden from the public.

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

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