This museum was invented in a novel before being made real by the author.

A fountain standing as a testament to a doomed alliance.

This remarkably well-preserved Egyptian plinth is pretty well traveled for a giant piece of stone.

Ancient serpentine sacrifice holder that has stood the test of time.

A marvel of Byzantine engineering under the streets of Istanbul.

Sofia's legislative center is continuously reinventing itself.

A striking symbol of the Bulgarian capital.

Beautiful Austrian natural history museum with carved ceilings and row after row of ancient taxidermy.

A neo-Gothic church built to thank God for saving the Emperor of Austria from an assassination.

Baroque celebration of the end of the Great Plague of Vienna.

One of the world's few mounted blue whales, its jaws are hinged open allowing visitors to descend into a lounge.

The scars of a remarkably organized public protest to save 13 elm trees are still visible in this Stockholm park.

Sweden's oldest animated sign is still lighting up the skyline today.

Now a hotel, this former bank was the site of a robbery that spawned a psychological phenomenon.

The library's graceful rotunda is like a bibliophile's temple.

Stockholm's decidedly unique public transit system has doubled as the world's longest art gallery for decades.

Villas that once served as playgrounds for the rich now fall away in decay.

An alien church provides much needed silence in the midst of a Finland shopping center.

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

The odd depiction of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus is rooted in the Catholic Church's eradication of Catharism.

The mark of the Devil's horns on a marble column in Milan.

This giant middle finger statue sends an unambiguous message to Italy's bankers.

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

The last moments of the ill-fated Pompeiians, frozen forever in plaster.