Milan's duomo is covered in beautiful carving including a curious "dinosaur-like" beast.

Two very green residential towers cleaning the air in one of Europe's most polluted cities.

The secret medieval communication system will whisk your words above the noise of the crowd.

Long-abandoned art nouveau baths beneath Milan's Piazza Oberdan.

A Milanese café entirely designed by the American director Wes Anderson.

This giant middle finger statue sends an unambiguous message to Italy's bankers.

An ossuary built in 1210 to collect bones from the Ospedale Maggiore of Milan.

Where Venice's gondolas go for a tune-up.

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

A small island less than half a mile from Venice is a forbidden island with a dark and twisted past.

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

According to tradition this is the oldest church in Venice, but its actual age is a mystery.

Stare out over the lagoon and beyond from this 10th-century campanile on the island where the city of Venice began.

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

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

Originally a leper colony, the island is now an Armenian monastery that's home to an incredible manuscript library and eclectic museum.

An extensive collection of reliquaries containing the bones of saints housed in the largest Catholic church in Venice.

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

The small peaceful island off the Venice tourist circuit is where the city began more than 1,500 years ago.

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

Hanging within this medieval church are the bones of a beast allegedly slain by a fourth-century saint.

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

Venice's "Island of the Mad."

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