The medieval legend behind this holy well was one of the inspirations behind "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."

The pile of books behind the dignified writer gave the statue a most undignified nickname.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As can be expected from a centuries old church built in a canal city, the undercroft of this house of worship is beautifully flooded.

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

This enormous abstract sculpture is part jungle gym, part elaborate noise-making machine.

It took 82 years and four different plaques to finally get the story right.

Mystic Incan rock piles three miles above sea level.

Visiting dignitaries and Hollywood stars once stayed at this 1920s hotel, alongside ghosts that are said to haunt its corridors.

The large collection of pre-Columbian pottery might make you blush.

Did Inca children also slide down these smooth rocky slopes above Cusco?

Now containing the bones of the actual conquistador, instead of someone else.

This stone complex marks the urban center of a lost civilization.

This medieval sanctuary's tree-framed door looks like a portal to a mythical realm.

Lima’s Museum of Anthropology is lined with thousands of elongated human craniums.

This Peruvian canyon is filled with geometric salt pools that have been being harvested since the Incan empire.

Huge stone depressions which may have acted as an Incan agricultural experiment.