Guimet Museum

France's national museum of Asian art holds one of the largest collections of Khmer sculpture outside Cambodia, and its galleries span the continent from Afghanistan and India to China, Korea and Japan. Signs and maps call it the Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet, or simply Musée Guimet.

Visitors find stone gods and Buddhas from Angkor-era temples, Buddhist sculpture from Gandhara, finds from French excavations in Afghanistan, Himalayan bronzes and paintings, and large holdings of Chinese ceramics and Japanese art. Among the highlights are Buddhist paintings and manuscripts brought back from Dunhuang by the explorer Paul Pelliot. A nearby annex, the Hôtel d'Heidelbach, displays a Buddhist pantheon and has a small Japanese garden.

The museum began with the Lyon industrialist Émile Guimet, who collected religious objects on his travels and opened a museum in Lyon before moving it to Paris in 1889. It is best suited to visitors with an interest in Asian art and religion, and the main collections can easily fill a few hours.