What if all public housing projects had been designed by "the Pygmalion of modern architecture," not only their prototype?

A unrivaled and rather horrifying collection of wax dermatological models.

This whimsical castle of grottoes was the labor of love of a French postman, and one of the greatest achievements of outsider architecture.

A counter-culture bookstore like no other hides in plain sight in the streets of Paris.

One of the oldest student jails in Germany.

Bring out your dead (saints that have been festooned and bejeweled, so that we can parade them around the town)!

A steam powered train that runs on city streets.

These jeweled relics have a scandalous and contested past.

According to a satirical conspiracy theory that persists today, this German city of 300,000 is a hoax invented by the CIA.

One of the oldest cemeteries in Germany was originally used for victims of a cholera epidemic.

An engineering wonder at Pillnitz Castle protects a precious 230-year-old flowering shrub.

A series of haunting wooden totems are hidden in the woods surrounding a German environmental center.

In a small churchyard in Dingolfing, Germany the quaint Schusterkapelle is there to remind you of your imminent mortality.

A wunderkammer of exoticism immortalized by Tom Waits.

In 1830, cemetery workers in Cham unearthed a chamber housing thousands of skeletal remains from the 13th century, which can still be viewed today.

A strange rock formation with numerous legends trying to explain it.

This ancient ruined monastery has been destroyed by fire so many times that it seems like God hates it.

This unique Renaissance castle was turned into a home for Nazi occultism.

Once the tallest building in the world, this abandoned church is now a monument to the destruction of WWII.

This Nazi-built amphitheater was constructed on a sacred mountain site used by various German cults.

This German bone house contains the remains of some 20,000 souls.

This medieval castle overlooking the Elzbach river looks just like it did hundreds of years ago.

A long spiraling walkway winds through the woods, and around a copper beech tree at the center.

Soaring over 6,000 feet in the Bavarian Alps, this beer garden was once Hitler's 50th birthday present.