Places zdenkadoma Wants to Go

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

Twelve grave-faced marble angels guard the emperor's tomb at Les Invalides.

BDSM, 1930s Style.

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

Noirish green neon marks the location of one of the oldest private detective agencies in France.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The first green space constructed on an elevated viaduct.

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

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

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

The curious underground history of keeping Paris clean.

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

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

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

A majestic lion statue guards this Parisian botanical garden, and feeds on an unsettling item.

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 charming cobbled backstreet is the most Instagramable street in Paris, much to the residents' annoyance.