Go inside to really appreciate this 500-year-old technological masterpiece.

This Venice bookstore has resigned itself to constant flooding by keeping its books in bathtubs and boats.

A new sculpture calls attention to climate change in the centuries-old city it threatens.

A sinister pyramid in the Frari contains the heart of the famous neoclassical sculptor.

In the past, Renaissance sex workers were encouraged to entice customers on this bridge.

Two stone columns flank the grand Venice square, but there were supposed to be three.

This palatial spiral staircase was so unusual the name "snail" was given to the noble family who built it.

The pile of books behind the dignified writer gave the statue a most undignified nickname.

100 year tradition of fist fights, marked by marble footsteps.

This sturdy, circular stronghold served as one of the forts that protected the Venetian Lagoon.

The plague quarantine island home to the alleged "Vampire of Venice."

This deconsecrated church has seen many uses, from a tobacco storehouse to a cinema.

Among the ostentatious rococo ornamentation of this church, an image of death cuts the life-thread.

Go surfing on this urban wave, "hacked" by local surfers.

Once one of the largest producers of pig iron in the world.

A miniature city built by a single hunchbacked monk.

It may look like no more than a full-scale model, but every part of this full Space Shuttle stack had a working role in aviation history.

A small park on Bourbon Street features life-size bronze statues of New Orleans musicians.

A 200-year-old bar in the historic French Quarter refuses to give up its place in history, nor its role in securing ours.

Island wonderland for communist autocrats.

Every hour the doors open to reenact the legend of the heroic mayor who saved his town by drinking a gallon of wine.

The birthplace of Karl Marx is now a museum dedicated to the communist revolutionary's life and work.

This magnificent museum claims to house the cranium of a disciple and the skull of a pope.

The last bastion of Roman presence north of the Alps looms over a German town.