Le Musée des Égouts de Paris (Paris Sewer Museum)

Want to get down and dirty in Paris? Then take a tour of the city’s ancient sewer system—popular since the 1800s, apparently. Photo credit: Vincent de Groot

The biggest science museum in Europe, it features a “bioclimatic facade” of three large greenhouse spaces, a planetarium and in-depth rotating exhibitions. Photo credit: Vbritto

The museum’s collection contains more than 19,595 items, including 150 aircraft and material from as far back as the 16th century. Also displayed are more modern air and spacecraft, including the prototype for the Concorde.

Like something out of Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” landed in the center of Paris, the Pompidou Center is an outrageously expressive collection of HVAC systems, escalators, and an impressive array of modern and contemporary art. Photo credit: Rui Ornelas

The museum revisits the major stages in the history of radioactivity and its applications, notably the use of radiation in medicine, through the life and work of the two scientific couples—Marie and Pierre Curie and Irène and Frédéric Joliot-Curie.

Heaven for card sharps, this museum contains about 9,000 objects, including nearly 6,500 playing cards, 980 etchings, drawings and posters, and more than other 1,000 objects related to card games. Photo Credit: Parisette

The museum occupies 16th-century cellars beneath the Marquis de Sade’s house, and includes items relating to magic shows, including optical illusions, secret boxes, wind-up toys and magic mirrors.

About 100 military models dating back to the 17th century are conserved today by this museum. They give particular attention to the city fortifications and topographic features, such as hills and harbors. Photo credit: Myrabella

Take a trip to the future. Well, kind of, with one of Paris’ two (Line 14 is the other) automated metro trains—that’s right, no driver. Hang on to your croissants! Photo credit: Poudo99

Founded in 1794 as a repository for the preservation of scientific instruments and inventions, the museum’s collection has more than 80,000 objects and 15,000 drawings, including an original version of the Foucault pendulum, which French physicist Léon Foucault invented in 1851 as a way to show rotation of the earth.Photo credit: PHGCOM