The first botanical garden, a feather in the cap of the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

In a city that boasts four separate inclined cable railways, this is one of the busiest funicular lines in the world.

A small window on Via Piella offers a lovely and rare peek at Bologna's lost canals.

A rambling museum which honors the beauty in everyday objects.

An eccentric artist's abode in this small Italian town has been transformed into a surreal temple of mosaic madness.

One of the world’s smallest bars, just 13 square feet, is brimming with speakeasy flair.

A modern sliver of architecture in Roma.

An open-air museum in a mountain valley features works designed to blend in with—and disintegrate back into—their natural surroundings.

A collection of grotesques lines the walls of this Italian villa.

Fountain where visitors can earn a license to be mad.

The studio built by fascists in the hopes of "reviving the film industry" with the occasional propaganda film opportunity thrown in.

A fake medieval village in the middle of Turin.

Southern Italy's spinning top village.

This delightful little museum is dedicated to only one thing: pasta.

Gigantic mosaic sculptures of the figures on Tarot cards fill this colorful Tuscan garden.

Museum dedicated to literary greats of the Romantic Period is also the home in which Keats met his untimely end.

This half-finished "city of toys" was almost Italy's own Las Vegas.

A hospital where antique dolls are given new life.

On rare days, this abandoned castle's gatekeepers open its doors, revealing the eye-popping splendor hidden inside.

David Sedaris called it "The greatest shop in the world."

The once forbidden "secret cabinet" of erotic art from excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

This immaculate and historic water garden culminates in a massive stone dining table with an inset fountain for chilling the wine of the Cardinal's guests.

Sitting on an Italian hilltop is this surreal fortress built by the mad inventor of electrohomeopathy.

The oldest operating pharmacy in the world features 800-year-old recipes.