Places thelonesomeroad Wants to Go

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

A surrealist timepiece by the artist of melting clocks.

A museum of carnival attractions where you are invited to ride the rides.

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

A counter-culture bookstore like no other hides in plain sight in the streets of Paris.

This iconic Parisian bookstore doubles as the "Tumbleweed Hotel" for traveling writers.

This modest marker near Notre Dame identifies the very center of Paris.

Walk upon the mementos of the dead in this Parisian courtyard paved with medieval tombstones.

Notorious artist squat renovated into legal studios.

A museum of magic with a Sadist past.

A Parisian exterminator's shop whose storefront displays stuffed rats hanging from traps.

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

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

Behind the pink curtain, Au Bonheur du Jour, an art gallery of erotic archives.

A grotto-like lodge decorated with gilded mosaics, rocks and a noisy waterfall was the setting for the most sumptuous pleasure house of 1900s Europe.

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

The oldest stone house in Paris was built by its most famous alchemist.

This banal Parisian entranceway is not what it seems.

A French artist's vague warning hangs over Belleville.

This massive library holds what was once the largest book collection in the world.

A mechanized clock where a man fights off a dragon, crab, and rooster.

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

Stroll through retro Paris while shopping for old postcards and discarded doll heads.

A magical, macabre wax museum, beloved by locals, uses real artifacts to depict an assassination from the French Revolution.