My favorite place for outdoor art and architecture in Paris is the Palais Royal. The visitor is first met by Jean-Michel Othoniel’s fanciful metro station at Place Colette, decorated by colorful glass beads and aluminum, and then by Daniel Buren’s Les Deux Plateaux (pictured at top), a grid of striped black-and-white columns, echoing the columned arcades you find inside the Palais Royal itself. The gardens of this former royal residence are a beautiful and calm place to relax or picnic with friends in what is otherwise a very busy area of the city. Experience the Palais Royal on our French Revolution: A Murder Mystery walk. -- Vanessa Lincoln