Explore 400,000 years of humans' "battle against darkness" in this offbeat but thorough lamp museum.

This charming, hidden guild museum holds some 700 years of crossbow history.

The Belgian library displays burned books that were salvaged from the fires of both world wars.

Dummies recreate radiological discoveries from history.

A huge old mansion full of thousands of toys, each there to be used and played with.

Head underground and take a tour of the city's working sewer system, and see the underground river Senne, which defined Brussels for centuries before being covered in the 19th century.

Only museum in the world devoted to bookbinding and book arts holds a permanent collection representing five centuries.

The patron of this extravagant Art Nouveau confection insisted that nothing less than a boat should project from its facade.

This bike path traverses the treetops.

Drink among marionettes at this pub inside a historic puppet theater.

A wonderfully kitsch bookstore the size of a supermarket.

Because sometimes you need to make a batch of frites even when the stores are all closed.

Potato-peeling mannequins, Inca art, and a dangling tuber mobile help trace the history of fries at this Belgian museum.

A Museum of Psychiatry in a still-operating mental institution.

A 14th-century fortified keep showcases the masterpieces of an ingenious 20th-century clockmaker.

Christ's blood preserved in a Belgian town.

Three floors of musical instruments coming from all corners of the world and hundreds of years of musical history.

Climb inside an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times its normal size.

This gorgeous reading room houses the oldest and largest art history library in the Netherlands.

An ancient passage filled with stalls selling used books, once frequented by Vincent Van Gogh.

An Amsterdam street lined with antique shops each one dedicated to a different obscure collection.

The world's only museum devoted to the wonders of fluorescence.

The world's first zoo for microbes collecting the horrible and wonderful things living on and around us.

Da Vinci's equestrian statue, 500 years in the making.