In this medieval fish bowl, the carp weren't pets.

This Victorian marvel of engineering and artistic prowess is nicknamed the "Cathedral of Steam."

A 15th-century former coaching inn forms the implausibly grand entrance to a 1980s shopping mall.

A striking 500-year-old mansion provides an unexpectedly sublime home for live deer and a menagerie of exotic stuffed animals.

This unchanged Victorian park is rumored to have been the inspiration behind Peter Pan's Neverland.

Peace Park and the Atomic Bomb Dome.

The sound of swaying stalks in this stunning grove has been named a governmentally recognized sound.

A shrine contains nearly 200 statues of the Buddhist deity Jizo, dressed in bibs by parents who have lost a child.

Cold war icon and onetime "hole" in the iron curtain.

A narrow passage next to a cafe leads to a courtyard exploding with murals, tags, and paste-ups.

Thousands of coffin-like pillars make up this controversial Holocaust memorial.

The bunker where Hitler took his own life is hidden under this deliberately ordinary parking lot.

The hometown of a beloved manga artist created a treasure hunt for his popular ghostly characters.

This enormous "shamoji" means more to the people of Miyajima than just a way getting rice onto a plate.

A 59-ft. robot statue looks over the citizens of earthquake-ravaged Kobe.

Burial mound for the ears and noses of thousands of mutilated Korean soldiers.

Closed for decades, this strange symbol of Japan's Expo '70 has finally opened its psychedelic insides to the public.

Twelve hundred stone carvings guard this off-the-beaten-path Buddhist temple.

Once a black market electronics marketplace, now an otaku shopper's paradise.

Japanese national treasure originally built in 593 CE.

A statue in Budapest's Liberty Square honors the former U.S. president's efforts to end the Cold War.

The ancestral home of beloved English poet Lord Byron has a bizarre history.

One of the few remaining casualties of the London Blitz, this destroyed church has become an enchanting public garden.

The legendary birthplace of the Japanese maneki-neko is dotted with hundreds of lucky beckoning cats.