World's first "penitentiary," meant to be humane, drove men insane.

America's most famous museum of medical oddities is home to the remains of Albert Einstein's brain.

A whimsical and twisted animatronic monster tour beneath the streets of Berlin.

Art and a pun, all in one.

A narrow passage next to a cafe leads to a courtyard exploding with murals, tags, and paste-ups.

These traffic lights celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the women's suffrage movement in Lithuania.

Legend has it that Napoleon Bonaparte fell in love with this Gothic church.

The Frank Zappa fan club erected this monument to their prog-rock hero to mark a new era of post-Soviet Lithuania.

Travelers who fall victim to this mermaid's charms are destined to stay in Užupis forever.

This micro-nation may be some sort of prank, but its constitution sure seems official.

Things aren't quite what they seem at this mind-bending museum.

Latvia's symbolic mountain-shaped national library is home to millions of cultural tomes.

The oldest housing complex in Riga is a mini timeline of architectural trends.

A black cat protests the City Guild in Riga's Old Town.

3,000 market stands in five former Zeppelin hangars.

Estonia's largest creative city is a vibrant bohemian hub located within a former industrial complex.

An empty relic of the Moscow Olympics crumbles away in Estonia's capital.

For nearly 2,000 years this church has been waging war on local snakes by importing cats.

The ancient mosaics here are considered among the finest in the world, and serve as a stunning record of Greco-Roman daily life.

Once part of an ancient international harbor, it's now an all-you-can-eat shrimp buffet for flamingos and other water birds.

This water-tower-turned-high-end-apartment building was once the site of an early Nazi concentration camp.

Blitzkrieg bop your way through Berlin's Ramones Museum.

Late at night, the bust of the "Dracula" actor was snuck onto the facade of this Budapest castle.

A unique hotel for the artistic soul.