This city square is home to Amsterdam's oldest church and a statue honoring Dutch sex workers.

This impressive collection of rare books on ancient mysticism inspired author Dan Brown.

The attic of a four-century-old canal house hides a clandestine church.

This historic Amsterdam bar used to accept sailor's monkeys as payment.

Established in 1638 to battle the Black Death, Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam is a treasure trove of rare flora.

A floating cat sanctuary on an Amsterdam canal.

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

Cat art as far as the eye can see.

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

A curious collection dedicated to human and animal anatomy and pathology.

Museum preserving torture methods from the past.

The weathered grave of a medieval anchoress who walled herself up in a cell attached to a church.

Oxford University's stateliest library seems designed to make students truly feel the weight of knowledge.

Home to the most complete dodo remains known - one head, and one foot.

The names Lúthien and Beren can be found inscribed on the shared grave of the famous writer and his beloved wife and muse.

The beloved fantasy novelist is buried near a church containing a whimsical etched glass window full of Narnia favorites.

Ancient Egyptian wigs, South American feather headdresses, a bounty of anthropological artifacts in Oxford.

J.R.R Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and other "Inklings" met at the Oxford pub to discuss the now legendary fantasy stories they were writing.

One of Europe's oldest libraries.

An Oxford museum where visitors can have tea with the Mad Hatter and climb through the wardrobe to a fantasy land.

This early version of the guillotine was used to execute the man responsible for its construction.

Remnants of the 16th-century defensive wall still stand unassumingly within Edinburgh.

A library where thousands of books explain how to avoid another Great Recession.

Protecting the dead from opportunistic body snatchers.