cecilcooper's User Profile - Atlas Obscura
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Vilaplana, Spain

La Mussara

Now a pile of ruins and rubble, this was a lovely mountain town as recently as 1960.
Tbilisi, Georgia

Leaning Tower of Tbilisi

The charmingly disheveled clock tower of Tbilisi's puppet theater.
Tbilisi, Georgia

The Iveria

Luxury hotel turned into a refugee camp, then turned back into a luxury hotel.
Istanbul, Turkey

Basilica Cisterns of Istanbul

A marvel of Byzantine engineering under the streets of Istanbul.
Syria

Church of Saint Simeon the Stylite

What is left of the pillar of Saint Simeon, the voluntary martyr who climbed the column to give his sermons, remaining perched there for thirty-seven years.
Safita, Syria

Krak des Chevaliers

Ruins of the Crusaders' headquarters.
Palmyra, Syria

Palmyra

Mysterious lost empire of the Silk Road.
Aksum, Ethiopia

Obelisk of Axum

Massive stele returned to Ethiopia after 70 years in Rome.
Shibam, Yemen

Shibam

A city built from mud and known as the "Manhattan of the desert."
London, England

Sir Richard Burton's Tent-Tomb

Eclectic final resting place of the controversial explorer.
Stockholm, Sweden

Skansen Open Air Museum

Sweden's "good old days" painstakingly re-created in a model village.
London, England

Highgate Cemetery

London's creepiest cemetery was once the site of dueling magicians and mobs of stake-carrying vampire hunters.
Turkmenistan

The Gates of Hell

A fiery crater has been burning in the Karakum Desert since 1971.