Places worth your afternoon.
945,401 sights, cafés, bars and markets across 753 cities. The travel guide's picks come first, then the open map of every independent place worth a detour, sharpened by tips from people who live there.
Popular cities
All 753 citiesFree to wander into
No ticket needed. A few of the free sights listed this week.
London · Bloomsbury
British Museum
A vast repository of the world's cultures, controversially including hundreds of items that were looted from their places of origin. Entire sections are devoted to Egyptian, Greek, and Middle Eastern artifacts, as well as the piece which united them all, the Rosetta Stone. Other items on everyone's list are the largest collection of mummies outside Egypt and the Elgin Marbles. The collection also includes some of the world's finest collections of Chinese and Sub-Saharan African art; perhaps the most famous of the latter are the Benin bronzes. A definite highlight of a trip to London. Temporary exhibitions are invariably excellent and meticulously researched, but can be expensive. It has a fine store, mainly selling replicas of items in the collection.
Manhattan · Midtown East
Grand Central Terminal
Walk in and see the main concourse, a cavernous room often filled with people and elegantly detailed, with arched windows, a lovely clock, and an astronomical ceiling.
Paris · 5th arrondissement
Jardin des Plantes
The Paris Botanical Garden, founded as the royal medicinal garden in 1626 by King Louis XIII's doctor, contains over 10,000 species. The grounds also include a small zoo known as La Ménagerie, and the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, which includes the Grande Galerie de l'Evolution (where you can see thousands of naturalized animals from all over the world) and the Galerie de paléontologie et d'anatomie comparée (same thing, but with skeletons).
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