The marble facade hides a little-known medical museum with early surgical instruments and rare copies of canonical texts.

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

Venice's island of the dead.

Armenian monks at an island monastery in the Venetian Lagoon make a rare rose petal jam.

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

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

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

Go inside to really appreciate this 500-year-old technological masterpiece.

This community on a small Venetian island has taken to painting their houses in bright neon hues.

This Venice bookstore has resigned itself to constant flooding by keeping its books in bathtubs and boats.

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

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

In the past, Renaissance sex workers were encouraged to entice customers on this bridge.

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

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

A beautiful little museum hidden away in the heart of Barcelona holds a treasure trove of Ancient Egyptian artifacts

This home designed for chocolate magnate Antoni Amatller is an exquisite treasure-box of Catalan Modernism.

18th century anatomical amphitheater of the Royal College of Surgery of Barcelona.

This stunning iron gate designed by Modernist architect Antoni Gaudí is filled with mythic symbolism.

Occupied for six centuries by Franciscan Order nuns, this monastery is an amazing ode to Catalán Gothic architecture.

A former steam-powered mill from the 1800s is now an industrial park with a giant steel dragon slide.

One of Antoni Gaudí's least-visited works, an homage to Catalan patrimony that mixes neo-Gothic with Modernista forms.

A cemetery in Barcelona's Poblenou district is home to this touching funerary statue, which depicts death in the form of a winged skeleton.

One of Europe's largest supercomputers is housed inside of a disused chapel.