If your school was decorated with trippy graffiti, served ambrosial coffee, and was frequented by mimes, it might have been similar to this groovy cafe.

This ancient Egyptian obelisk still bears the wounds of World War I.

Behind one of the world's most impenetrable vaults is a massive collection of retail silver.

Its collection includes a broad array of social, geographic, graphic design, and political history.

The ritual has been performed uninterrupted for nearly 700 years.

A unique tribute to the millions of animals who served and died for the British military.

The world's oldest family-run magic shop is hidden beneath a bustling London thoroughfare.

A clock designed to run with perfect accuracy for 10,000 years.

English antique dealers with a taste for the unusual.

Several plaster noses are hidden in plain sight around London's Soho neighborhood.

A special shop catering to the needs of things that go bump in the night, and also helps kids become writers.

The quaint little store that is said to have inspired a famous Dickens novel was only given its name after the book was released.

This churchyard arbor is surrounded by hundreds of gravestones placed there by author Thomas Hardy.

London's creepiest cemetery was once the site of dueling magicians and mobs of stake-carrying vampire hunters.

An iconic and eccentric bar for "Manouche" Jazz music keeps expanding its space—and its influence.

Twelve grave-faced marble angels guard the emperor's tomb at Les Invalides.

A subterranean shelter remains intact under a busy Paris railway station.

This statue was given to France by the United States to commemorate the centennial of the French Revolution.

Indents in the pavement are all that remain from a grisly death machine in Paris.

A favorite Paris bar for U.S. expats, including Gershwin, Hemingway, and James Bond.

A surrealist timepiece by the artist of melting clocks.

A haunting collection of the vanished and disappearing natural world.

The very center of Paris is surrounded by a bevy of strange good luck rituals.

Paris' linguistic guide to the international language of, yes, love.