This magnificent Crimean estate was once a playground of the Russian elite.

A castle perched precariously over the Crimean Sea.

This space age health spa looks like a supervillain's lair.

The longest trolleybus route in the world, from Simferopol and Yalta.

The ancient ruins of an extinguished city amidst the bustle of a modern one.

A striking symbol of the Bulgarian capital.

This remarkably well-preserved Egyptian plinth is pretty well traveled for a giant piece of stone.

A mountain pass in Bulgaria's Balkan Mountains was the site of four historic battles.

An abandoned saucer-shaped monument in the Bulgarian mountains.

UNESCO-protected ancient burial ground.

This historic black and white monastery is one of Bulgaria's architectural jewels.

A marvel of Byzantine engineering under the streets of Istanbul.

1513 Turkish world map, full of European state secrets and snarky commentary.

No one is sure if the world's fourth-largest diamond had been found in a rubbish heap or was pawned by Napoleon's mom.

Monasteries on rock pillars, once accessible only by frayed ropes.

This famous city eluded concrete detection until the early 2000's.

The hallucinogenic center of the ancient world.

Where commuters walk through remnants of an ancient Greek necropolis.

This legendary city has been a tourist attraction for centuries.

Replicas of Apollo's leonine stone guard cats still line a sacred row in Greece.

Giant marble phalluses on the sacred island of antiquity.

A Bronze age settlement on the Greek island of Santorini might have been the inspiration for Plato's Atlantis.

Roman ruins top white travertine terraces formed by ancient hot springs.

These tombs were built into the side of a mountain so that ancient angels could reach the dead.