The beloved statue at the National Academy of Sciences is oh so inviting to sit on.

This stunning blue and gold room changed cities twice before becoming part of the Smithsonian.

Home to items never before seen by the public.

This fertility idol of questionable authenticity inspired an iconic Indiana Jones artifact.

The Byzantine, pre-Columbian, and medieval art at this stately mansion are some of the most under-appreciated collections in D.C.

A historic estate packed with George Washington's heirlooms, and its own nuclear bunker.

The romance of early commercial flight still fills this Art Deco destination.

The national park was once a plantation estate.

The remains of a historic plantation nestled in between a parking lot and the rental car return at Reagan National Airport.

Dating back to the second century, vestiges of prehispanic mural paintings are found in this underground palace.

The 5.5-mile ring of steel posts around the Capitol Building is one of the largest (and most uniform) of its kind in the world.

This groundbreaking 16th-century map is known as "America's birth certificate."

The hippo that stands on this university campus was once a drunken flea market purchase.

This tiny garden was built specifically to provide a place of peace and serenity away from the busy city streets.

This museum houses two of Mexico's most impressive Aztec monoliths.

Abandoned figurines adorn a small plot on the side of a craft market's entrance.

These spectacular, symbolic serpents lie within the shadow of the Great Temple.

America's first nuclear-powered merchant ship is now a time warp to the atomic age.

The conquistador's former fortress is the oldest preserved colonial building in the Americas.

An incredible little museum of interior design full of artifacts collected from around the world.

Monumental paintings, discovered in a Mexican cathedral in 1957, depict the deaths of some friars in Japan.

The Mexican painter Diego Rivera created this unusual museum to display his collection of pre-Hispanic artifacts.

A museum in the former home of Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky.

Frida Kahlo's childhood home, now a museum of her life and works.