Tiki luxury on Nob Hill.

In all of the 29 years it was in operation, no prisoners ever escaped successfully... or so they claim.

A strange house built only at night, with rumored mystic inspiration.

A Buddhist retreat built on more than 100 acres of California Redwood forest.

Statue of Lenin, from Cold War era Czechoslovakia, now in a neighborhood of Seattle.

The oldest restaurant in the world is this old-world Spanish eatery, still known for its suckling pig.

Over two centuries old and counting, Madrid's massive botanical garden contains one of Europe's only desert environments.

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

A new sculpture calls attention to climate change in the centuries-old city it threatens.

The middle finger of modernity.

The largest and most famous wax anatomical collection anywhere in the world.

An unusual "skull with ears" sits in the crypt of this small church tucked away at the end of a narrow alley.

The Neapolitan Cult of the Dead still cares for the skulls at this mini-Fontanelle.

This Neapolitan exhibition hall grants weird and wonderful insight into the intricacies of human biology.

These "anatomical machines" are only one of the many strange items in this Italian crypt.

San Gennaro, the patron saint of Naples, greets pedestrians between these narrow city streets.

The remains of the left arm of the levitating philosopher-saint are kept in a 13th-century Neapolitan basilica.

A labyrinth of ancient tunnels hidden below the city holds the ruins of 2,500 years of history.

The final resting place of the poets Shelley and Keats.

At the crypt of St. Mary of Eulogies and the Dead you are left alone to ponder mortality among piles of skulls.

More sculpture than building, this architecturally significant temple was built on the spot of Saint Peter's crucifixion.

Hundreds of lucky felines haunt the ruins where Caesar was murdered.

In a city that boasts four separate inclined cable railways, this is one of the busiest funicular lines in the world.

The yawning maw of this pagan visage is said to bite off the hands of liars.