Palais Royal

This is Paris's best-kept secret hiding in plain sight, a five-minute walk from the Louvre that most tourists walk right past. Step through the archway and you're in a formal garden surrounded by elegant 18th-century arcades that once housed the most scandalous entertainment district in Europe.

Cardinal Richelieu built the original palace in the 1630s, and it eventually passed to the Orléans branch of the royal family. In the 1780s, the Duke of Orléans, perpetually short of cash, opened the arcades to commercial tenants: gambling houses, cafés, theaters, and brothels. Because the palace was royal property, Parisian police had no jurisdiction — it became a zone of total freedom. The French Revolution arguably started here: on July 12, 1789, a young journalist named Camille Desmoulins stood on a café table in the garden and called Parisians to arms. Two days later, they stormed the Bastille.

Today the courtyard is dominated by Daniel Buren's 1986 installation of 260 black-and-white striped columns of varying heights, which caused an uproar almost as intense as the Eiffel Tower controversy. Parisians called them an abomination. Now they're beloved, and children climb on them while fashion photographers use them as backdrops.

The garden itself is a masterpiece of calm in the center of Paris. The lime trees form perfect green walls, the fountain splashes gently, and on warm afternoons the benches fill with locals reading or napping. The surrounding arcades now house high-end boutiques, antique shops, and some of the most atmospheric restaurants in Paris, including Le Grand Véfour, which has been serving meals since 1784.