Musée d'Orsay (Orsay Museum)

This magnificently restored railway station houses the French national collection of art from 1848 to 1914. Since opening in 1986, the museum has attracted pilgrims from far and wide who come to take in the stunning collection of Impressionist and Post Impressionist art. Paintings include five Monet canvases of Rouen Cathedral, ballet scenes by Dégas, Courbet’s shocking L’Origine du Monde (the Origins of the World), a hyperrealistic painting depicting a naked woman lying on her back, and works by Cézanne, Van Gogh, Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec. The museum’s collection also contains several fine sculptures as well as examples from the Art Nouveau movement. The museum works upwards in chronological order, and there is a café on the sky-lit upper level, where views of Paris can be enjoyed from behind the original station clock. The museum’s restaurant is a finely decorated dining room, preserved in its original state, and popular with its many visitors.