Open to the public in 1986, nearly ten years after its initial conception, the d’Orsay is a relatively recent addition to Paris’ ever-expanding stock of museums. Slated for destruction, the long empty Gare d’Orsay, across from the Tuileries on the left bank of the Seine, was rescued and reissued as an art museum dedicated to France’s long 19th century (1820 to 1914). Works pinched from the collections of the Louvre, the Jeu de Paume and the Centre Pompidou rest under the lovely bones of the station, itself a seminal work of 19th-century art.

Although perhaps most famous and most frequented for its collection of Impressionist tableaux, d’Orsay also holds a formidable body of work: Manet, Moreau, Puvis de Chavannes and of course Courbet. On the second floor you’ll find treasures of Eclecticism and the Art Nouveau, from the dazzling toilette of the Duchess of Parma to Guimard’s sinuous wrought ironworks. Enjoy a bit of repose in the d’Orsay tea room just behind the station’s imposing clock. And arrive early: the lines can be epic and avoid Tuesdays, when redirected traffic from the Louvre overwhelms the museum’s galleries.