For hundreds of years, automatons moving to metallic music have been marking the passage of time.

In this Parisian garden's grotesque former life as a zoo it fed exotic animals to the bourgeois and put humans on exhibit.

Lyon, France is home to two remarkably preserved Roman theaters, one dating back to 15 BCE.

This massive blockhead sculpture hides an entire library.

Historic medieval fortified city in southwest France.

The mental institution where Van Gogh created some of his most famous work now allows guests to walk in the artist's footsteps.

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

At Monet's beloved home you can still see the Japanese bridge, waterlilies, and weeping willows that were the subjects of some of his most iconic paintings.

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.

This structure atop a craggy cliff in one of the most beautiful parks in Paris boasts an unbeatable view.

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

An immersive projection art installation uses sound, scale, and light to take visitors inside classic works of art.

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

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

The tradition of open-air secondhand and antiquarian bookselling in Paris dates back to the Renaissance.

Sacked by Vikings, blessed by William the Conqueror, dealt a fatal blow during the French Revolution—these ruins have seen it all.

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

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

This whimsical castle of grottoes was the labor of love of a French postman, and one of the greatest achievements of outsider architecture.

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.

A Parisian cemetery where the elite and artistic are interred beneath an eccentric collection of tombs.

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

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

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