You haven’t really seen France if you’ve never toured a mansion made of pebbles, taken a ride on a gigantic animatronic elephant, checked out Nazi bunkers turned guerrilla art or gazed upon row after row of horrifying anatomical curiosities. These 12 offbeat and little-known sights in Paris and beyond go a bit off the beaten path for a whole new look at one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations.

Palais Ideale: Palace of Pebbles

A postman named Ferdinand Cheval spent began building his “Palais Ideale” from scratch using pebbles in 1879, looking for interesting stones along his route and carrying them back in his pockets. As he grew more involved with the project, he began toting them in baskets, and then wheelbarrows. Each night when his shift ended, he would join the stones using cement, lime and mortar by the light of an oil lamp. It took him over twenty years to complete his masterpiece, which is filled with hundreds of incredible tiny sculptures. He also spent over eight years building his own mausoleum nearby, and was buried there in 1924.

Le Moulin Jaune

“The Yellow Windmill” is a quirky amusement park an hour’s drive southeast of Paris, with a bright yellow castle and a garden full of strange art installations and circus-like performances. The whole thing was dreamed up and run by a Russian avant-garde performance artist named Slava Polunin, who’s best known for “revolutionizing the art of clowning.” He can be spotted paddling down the Grand Morin river on his bed.

Paris’ Own Kowloon Walled City

Paris would have had a lawless Kowloon City of its very own, almost exactly like the one that was razed in Hong Kong in 1993, had one 18th century vision for a “proletariat citadel” ever come to pass. The labyrinthine cluster of interconnected buildings in Paris’ 18th arrondissement at the intersection of rue Eugene Sue and rue Simart was built to host 10,000 workers, becoming one of the densest blocks in the city. The idea was that it could function as its own autonomous citadel resistant to the forces of suppression. Internal courtyards are so small, daylight barely pierces them all the way to the ground, and when it was first built, it very likely looked a lot like the real Kowloon. It never became nearly as squalid, however, so it’s not in danger of being demolished.

Pigeon Castles in the Countryside

What look like bizarrely tiny castles dotting the French countryside (and other areas of Europe) are not made for humans at all, but rather pigeons. People once built ‘pigeonniers’ (or dovecotes in English) to house the birds, which were raised for their meat, eggsand fertilizer. But by the 14 century, they became a symbol of status, and only landed estates of a certain size were allowed to have them. As other types of meat became more available after the Middle Ages, pigeonneirs fell out o favor, and today many stand as ruins while others are carefully preserved. (images via Daniel Jolivet, alain cielas, patrick janicek)

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Strange Sights Of France 12 Offbeat Travel Destinations

On a dark and creepy island in the canals of Xochimico near Mexico City sits what might be the world’s strangest and scariest tourist attraction ever. However, this sad island was never meant to be a stop on tourists’ holiday itineraries. The Island of the Dolls was dedicated to the lost soul of a poor little girl who met her fate too soon.

(image via: PlanetOddity)

The Island of the Dolls (Isla de las Munecas) sits in the canals south of Mexico City and is the current home of hundreds of terrifying, mutilated dolls. Their severed limbs, decapitated heads, and blank eyes adorn trees, fences and nearly every available surface. The dolls appear menacing even in the bright light of midday, but in the dark they are particularly haunting.

(images via: Zen Skillicorn)

Not surprisingly, the island’s origins lie in tragedy. The story goes that the island’s only inhabitant, Don Julian Santana, found the body of a drowned child in the canal some 50 years ago. He was haunted by her death, so when he saw a doll floating by in the canal soon after, he hung it in a tree to please the girl. He hoped to both appease her tortured soul and protect the island from further evil.

(images via: Tarzan)

One doll in a tree, however, was not enough to ease Santana’s troubled mind. He continued to fish dolls and doll parts out of the canal whenever he saw them, hanging each one carefully on the island. There weren’t enough canal dolls to satisfy Santana’s tortured spirit, so he began scavenging more from trash heaps on his rare trips away from home. Later in life, he began trading his home-grown fruits and vegetables for dolls.

(image via: Tarzan)

Many stories have been associated with the island over the years. A popular tale was that Don Julian had gone mad and believed the dolls to be real children who he pulled from the canal and tried to revive. But the truth, as told by his family members who now run the island as a tourist attraction, is that Don Julian simply believed the island was haunted by the spirit of the little girl. For reasons only known to Don Julian himself, he believed that he could make the dead girl happy and keep evil at bay by hanging discarded dolls in all of the island’s trees.

(image via: PlanetOddity)

The story took a particularly sinister turn in 2001 when Don Julian drowned in the canal just like the little girl. Many people said that the dolls, inhabited by tortured spirits, conspired to murder the old man. Others believe that Santana’s death was an accident and that since his passing, the dolls have taken over his role as the island’s caretaker.

(image via: PlanetOddity)

Although the island did not receive much tourist attention during Don Julian’s lifetime, it has become a well-known attraction since then. International television crews have filmed there several times, including one show that claimed to find proof the island is haunted.

(image via: Troels Myrup)

Getting to the island is a long and difficult task, but walking among the creepy dolls is an experience like no other. Most, if not all, of these dolls were rejected by their previous owners for various reasons. Severed limbs and body-less heads hang side-by-side with whole, sun-bleached dolls. Mold covers some, while others are missing nearly all of their artificial hair. Spiders and insects have taken up residence in the hollow parts of most of the dolls.

(images via: Esparta Palma and Bec Plumbe)

Although Don Julian’s sentiment was innocent and admirable, the doll graveyard he created is undeniably creepy. Soulless eyes follow visitors as they move around the small island (which is actually a chinampa, or artificial floating garden), and many swear that they can hear the dolls whispering to them. This labor of love (or fear, as it were) has resulted in an accidental sensation amongst those who admire the bizarre and twisted side of tourism.