After starting as a whimsical tourist attraction that eventually found its way to ruin, these renovated canals offer a lush and exotic locale on the Pacific Coast.

Elevated freight railway turned wildly successful urban park.

These delicate buggers are some of the rarest fossils that have bubbled up from the Tar Pits.

High on a hill overlooking Los Angeles lives a world famous, high power conical Tesla Coil.

This iconic L.A. bookshop is housed in an abandoned bank—both symbolic and chic.

This museum housed in a former brothel explores the past and present of sex work in Amsterdam.

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

This 22-floor tower's Skydeck offers panoramic views of Amsterdam.

This French ghost town from World War II has been left as a memorial to German atrocities during World War II.

An "inside out" building in the historical center of Paris, featuring Europe’s largest modern art museum.

This Parisian café sticks almost exclusively to an ethos of reuse.

High atop the Eiffel Tower is a small apartment built exclusively to entertain the science elite and make the rest of Paris jealous.

This iconic Parisian bookstore doubles as the "Tumbleweed Hotel" for traveling writers.

France's most famous cemetery, with some of its most curious tombs.

The abandoned zoo enclosures offer a perfect place to experience the other side of the bars.