This amazingly well-preserved villa just outside Pompeii boasts rare examples of ancient Roman paintings.

Buried next to Pompeii, this lesser-known Roman villa was the opulent vacation home of Emperor Nero's wife.

For centuries, this large Roman villa remained hidden thanks to the eruption that buried nearby Pompeii and Herculaneum.

The glowing blue Nymphaeum of Emperor Tiberius.

An Italian crevasse filled with abandoned buildings gives visitors a look at the world without humans.

A narrow opening between the mountains of the Amalfi Coast creates a scenic hidden beach.

A limestone grotto where daylight filters in from below and turns the water a beautiful turquoise. Also home to a small underwater nativity scene.

A beautifully well-preserved ancient Roman villa.

The incorrupt tongue of the patron saint of lost things is venerated in this basilica.

The world's oldest surviving anatomical theater, where "the dead are pleased to help the living."

Built to repay the sins of the father, this church is home to one of the most valuable works of Western art.

In this nearly 1,000-year-old monastery, monks painstakingly restore old books.

The Twisted Trees of Alticane are an unnerving grove of Quaking Aspen, apparently mutated from a single source, giving them a twisted and unnatural appearance.

This partially completed dam was simply abandoned after nearly destroying the city it was built to service.

The small peaceful island off the Venice tourist circuit is where the city began more than 1,500 years ago.

Hanging within this medieval church are the bones of a beast allegedly slain by a fourth-century saint.

Originally a leper colony, the island is now an Armenian monastery that's home to an incredible manuscript library and eclectic museum.

The marble facade hides a little-known medical museum with early surgical instruments and rare copies of canonical texts.

As can be expected from a centuries old church built in a canal city, the undercroft of this house of worship is beautifully flooded.

An extensive collection of reliquaries containing the bones of saints housed in the largest Catholic church in Venice.

This Roman statue is missing a limb from when the Venetians stole it from Constantinople during the Crusades.

According to tradition this is the oldest church in Venice, but its actual age is a mystery.

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

Those who own or stay at this 500-year-old, allegedly cursed house often meet terrible fates.