A large grotto built in the 16th century amidst Florence's famous Boboli gardens.

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

The oldest operating pharmacy in the world features 800-year-old recipes.

Thousands of well-dressed mummies below a monastery.

According to the local folklore, the myriad colors of this lake are the result of a lovelorn wizard's blunder.

Stalactites and stalagmites in a beautifully lit cave.

Pompeii's less famous neighbor is still revealing her secrets.

The underground sanctuary of a mysterious ancient cult.

The middle finger of modernity.

At the crypt of St. Mary of Eulogies and the Dead you are left alone to ponder mortality among piles of skulls.

Rome's semi-secret peephole vista is also a former Crusader stronghold.

The yawning maw of this pagan visage is said to bite off the hands of liars.

This hidden Art Nouveau courtyard is an opulent feast for the eyes.

A master of trompe-l'oeil creates a stunning, tourist-fooling dome out of a flat ceiling.

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

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

A submerged archeological park still holds the wonders of a Roman Sodom.

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

Hundreds of lucky felines haunt the ruins where Caesar was murdered.

A 16th-century horror show built in a lovely Italian garden.

The crypts of Capuchin friars decorated with the bones of over 4,000 friars, including an entire "crypt of pelvises."

An Italian crevasse filled with abandoned buildings gives visitors a look at the world without humans.

A Belle Epoque bordello turned into a themed love hotel.

A charming flea market shop dedicated to retrofuturistic apparati.