These beautiful objects represent beautiful ideas.

Home to the world’s oldest seismograph and a four-ton steel ball that makes its own earthquakes.

This unique Renaissance castle was turned into a home for Nazi occultism.

This temple to the sturm and drang of Richard Wagner contains a dragon's cave and reptile zoo full of living "dragons."

This former Nazi castle was built as a school to train what would have been the future of the Third Reich.

The history of German architecture is explored across this fairy-scale mini-city.

An amusement park on the grounds of an unused nuclear power plant, with a swing ride inside the cooling tower.

An industrial relic is now one of Europe's most staggering art spaces.

This mysterious pig iron pillar does not rust, despite being weathered by the elements for centuries.

This German art chapel is perfect for those who like their worship hard, modern, and utterly alien.

Made from trees and then abandoned, this fence is still growing along a path in Germany.

A rare water-powered funicular, it uses a huge tank of water and gravity to do its work.

A Black Forest cuckoo clock theme park features one timepiece big enough to walk inside.

There are two dozen tanks just sitting in an open field in Lower Saxony.

The second-largest Jewish temple in Bulgaria was deserted after World War II, seized by the communist government and then abandoned again.

A Romanian church built from one single oak.

A muddy alien landscape that is home to rare species of exotic plants.

This massive underground salt mine now holds a sci-fi theme park in its depths.

This fairy-tale castle would make Dracula (who is said to have been imprisoned there) jealous.

A giant portrait of an ancient king looms over the river.

This 14th century castle withstood years of battle but is now sliding off the hills into the Danube.

This huge metal monument is slowly being stripped to its concrete skeleton.

A chain of 16 wondrous lakes formed as a result of the gradual dissolution of soluble layers of bedrock.

A forgotten monument to Yugoslavian freedom.