Reid's List: Paris
The top 10 lesser-known sights and experiences in Paris
This is a wholly subjective list of some of my favorite, lesser-known sights, museums, monuments, and experiences in Paris. I have a pretty broad definition of "lesser-known" that includes anything not on the main Top 10 list.
That means some of these sights may be truly famous (just a shade less so than, say, the Louvre or Notre-Dame), while some of them will be pretty obscure, places I've come to love in a lifetime of returning to Paris.
Rodin Museum - The sculptor's studio and home, the house and its surrounding gardens filled with his greatest masterpieces... 
Centre Georges
Pompidou (Pompidou Museum) - A stellar collection of modern art in a giant building that must have looked cutting edge in the 1970s and bears a striking resemblance to a hamster's Habitrail set...
Picasso Museum- A
charming mix of the great artist's works and personal effects—even the master's paint-spattered chair [NOTE: Closed for refurbishment until 2013]...
Sainte-Chapelle - A stained-glass jewel box of a church that glows in architectures of light, hidden away in a courtyard surrounded by government buildings on Île de la Cité, just blocks from Notre-Dame...
Musée
de l'Orangerie - One of my favorite hidden sights in Paris, packed with Impressionist paintings and preserving in its basement two rooms fitted with 360 degrees of Monet waterlillies...
Père-Lachaise Cemetery - It's not just the scores of famous graves—Oscar Wilde, Chopin, Edith Piaf, Gertrude Stein, Jim Morrison—it's a stunning beautiful cemetery, crammed with stone monuments laid out over rolling, forested hillsides...
Musée National
du Moyen Ages - Thermes de Cluny - This museum to the Middle Ages in Paris is partially installed in the city's ancient
Roman baths...
Jardin des Plantes - This 1640 park is my favorite in Paris: a small, tidy series of fenced-in gardens divided by wide gravel paths and hiding a secret garden in its core....
The Sewers of Paris - A new way to view the city—and learn some quite disturbing facts about waste management as you tour the sewers made famous in Les Miserables...
The Institut du Monde Arabe - Close-up views of the Seine and the buttressed backside of Notre Dame from a funky, post-modern building (bonus: shows of Middle Eastern cultures and a tented Arab bazaar out front)...
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This article was last updated in February 2012. All information was accurate at the time.
Copyright © 1998–2012 by Reid Bramblett. All rights reserved.
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