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

The only museum with its curator—and her pets—buried inside.

Where Venice's gondolas go for a tune-up.

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

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

A popular legend claims that the famous pizza was invented at a restaurant in this alley.

Italian poet Dante Alighieri is entombed in this small mausoleum in Ravenna, and his hometown of Florence has never been too happy about it.

An open-air museum in a mountain valley features works designed to blend in with—and disintegrate back into—their natural surroundings.

One of the world's oldest working clocks is curiously missing the Zodiac sign of Libra.

A slightly creepy gallery of plaster cast models in the same museum as Michelangelo's David.

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

This seaside Italian village doesn't just look Escher-esque, it actually inspired the mind-bending artist.

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

Thousand-year-old Viking runes adorn an ancient Greek lion at the entrance to the Venetian Arsenal.

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

Venice's island of the dead.

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

Renaissance hospital featuring a rotating door into which unwanted babies were dropped.

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

An incredible menagerie of more than 3 million taxidermied animals at the oldest science museum in Europe.

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

Secret refuge and museum of the Duke of Florence.

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

This ritzy Italian market is built around a statue of an unforgiven heretic who was burned for his belief in an endless universe.