A collection of retro plastic goods made with "the material of a thousand uses."

The plague quarantine island home to the alleged "Vampire of Venice."

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

Venice's "Island of the Mad."

An incredible menagerie of more than 3 million taxidermied animals at the oldest science museum in Europe.

This bronze boar's snout has been rubbed to a golden sheen by visitors seeking good fortune.

The doodles of a genius line the walls of a secret room under the Medici Chapel, where they were hidden for nearly 500 years.

Secret refuge and museum of the Duke of Florence.

The middle finger of modernity.

Museum dedicated to literary greats of the Romantic Period is also the home in which Keats met his untimely end.

The national park was once a plantation estate.

This unacceptably tall building was the real reason for Washington, D.C.'s skyscraper ban.

Legend has it that President Grant’s frequent drinking in the lobby gave rise to the term “lobbyist.”

100 years later, they're still down there.

The Byzantine, pre-Columbian, and medieval art at this stately mansion are some of the most under-appreciated collections in D.C.

A painfully obvious spy house sits right across the street from the Russian Embassy.

The walls of the iconic dome are hollow and have a secret stairway.

One of the dwarven trees dates back to 1625 and survived the Hiroshima bombing.

Paris' fabled purveyor of exotic taxidermy and natural history curios.

A horde of stray cats rule in this secluded Parisian cemetery under a bridge.

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

The macabre collection of Jacques Sirgent, an expert scholar on the undead and all of their trappings.

The history and future of cannabis.

A floating cat sanctuary on an Amsterdam canal.