Hôtel de la Marine

Oh, it is good to be king. When Paris sought to honor Louis XV in the mid-1700s, he had just the property: an open square along the Seine between the Tuileries Gardens and the Champs-Elysées. One of the buildings on the site, an imposing palace, began as a garde-meubles – a royal storehouse for furniture and treasures – before becoming the naval ministry’s headquarters in 1789. The square is now Place de la Concorde; the king’s statue is gone, replaced by an obelisk, but the grand palace remains. After a stunning restoration, it now houses one of Paris’s most fascinating museums – with the most splendid rooftop view in the city. And to each visitor, it reveals a different past…