joannelang's User Profile - Atlas Obscura
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San Francisco, California

Loved to Death

This shop specializes in oddities and Victorian-inspired wonders.
San Francisco, California

Labyrinth at Land’s End

A winding path built in secret on the edge of the continent.
San Francisco, California

Yerba Buena Torpedo Storehouse

One time home to turn of the century explosives, now hidden under the Bay Bridge.
San Francisco, California

Rincon Center Murals

These WWII-era murals were initially booed as a libelous portrayal of the American dream but have survived multiple attempts to have them destroyed.
San Francisco, California

Pacific Basin Fountain on Treasure Island

Masterful ceramic fountain and map of the Pacific Basin.
San Francisco, California

Battery Chamberlin

Guns that have been defending San Francisco since 1904.
San Francisco, California

Hunter's Point Shipyard

Radioactivity still cause for concern at this urban explorer's paradise.
San Francisco, California

Arion Press and M & H Type

Fonts are born and bred here at the oldest letterpress type foundry in the United States.
San Francisco, California

Museum of Russian Culture

Russian history in San Francisco.
San Francisco, California

Golden Gate Park Druid Circles

The stones that traveled from Spain to eventually become a holy place for San Francisco's nature worshippers.
San Francisco, California

Church of 8 Wheels

This 19th-century church is now a popular roller rink.
San Francisco, California

Fort Miley Batteries

Big gun installations, built over a massive cemetery, now abandoned & hidden in trees.
San Francisco, California

Encryption Lava Lamps

The randomness of this wall of lava lamps helps encrypt up to 10 percent of the internet.
Paris, France

Julien Aurouze and Co.

A Parisian exterminator's shop whose storefront displays stuffed rats hanging from traps.
Paris, France

Napoleon's Angels

Twelve grave-faced marble angels guard the emperor's tomb at Les Invalides.
Paris, France

Le Chabanais

A grotto-like lodge decorated with gilded mosaics, rocks and a noisy waterfall was the setting for the most sumptuous pleasure house of 1900s Europe.
Paris, France

La Promenade Plantée

The first green space constructed on an elevated viaduct.
Paris, France

Musée Carnavalet

A museum on the history of Paris, including a set of Napoleon's toiletries, Proust's room, and relics of the Revolution.
Paris, France

Musee de la Magie

A museum of magic with a Sadist past.
Paris, France

La REcyclerie

This Parisian café sticks almost exclusively to an ethos of reuse.
Paris, France

The Room of Endangered and Extinct Species

A haunting collection of the vanished and disappearing natural world.
Paris, France

Jardin Alpin (Alpine Garden)

This recessed garden protects thousands of mountain plants by creating its own microclimates.
Paris, France

Medici Column

The spiral staircase hidden inside this giant Parisian column was likely built for Catherine de Medici's astrologer.
Paris, France

Grande Galerie de l'Évolution

Natural history museum celebrating biodiversity with a parade of taxidermy animals.