Paris, FranceThe most controversial building in Paris when it opened in 1977 — the inside-out industrial cathedral of pipes, escalators, and coloured ducts that houses Europe's largest modern art museum. The free public plaza is always buzzing; the rooftop panorama of Paris is extraordinary and often overlooked.
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The world's largest art museum and a former royal palace — 35,000 works across three wings that would take weeks to properly see. The Winged Victory, Venus de Milo, and Mona Lisa are here; so is an overwhelming amount of art that tourists walk past to reach those three. Book timed entry online.
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The world's greatest Impressionist collection inside a magnificent 1900 railway station — Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Seurat in a soaring glass-and-iron hall. More manageable than the Louvre and infinitely more beautiful as a space. The rooftop café has Seine views.
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The most spectacular Gothic interior in the world — a royal chapel on the Île de la Cité with 15 floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows that bathe the upper chapel in an otherworldly blue and gold light. Built in 1248 to house Christ's crown of thorns, it is the single most beautiful room in Paris.