Locals dubbed it the "Owl Building" because of its bird-like appearance.

Controversially claiming the title of world's biggest bass drum, UT's Big Bertha was once made radioactive by the Manhattan Project.

The upstairs reading room is packed with millions of rare books, literary manuscripts, and historical treasures.

This eclectic, mosaic-clad home includes a bamboo ping-pong loft and a "Whispermaphones" intercom.

Now abandoned, this East Austin school for the disabled began as the "State Colony for the Feeble-minded."

Life's work of sculptor Elisabet Ney remains preserved in her last studio.

Turning night into day in Victorian-era Austin to thwart a serial killer.

Free public park and gardens filled with peacocks and peahens.

A former electrical substation is now home to an eccentric junk art masterpiece.

A grove of colossal man-made flowers built to collect the sun's rays.

This failed condo development was reborn as a street art hub.

A store full of vintage and indie toys designed to bring out the kid in even the crustiest of adults.

Home to the largest urban bat colony in North America, estimated at 1.5 million bats.

One part antique store, one part curiosities hodge-podge.

This unique structure in suburban Austin is made up entirely of other people's castaways, and constantly changing.

Continuing the tradition of the dime museum in style.

The celebrated eyesore created by starry-eyed sweethearts.

This life-size replica of the Statue of Liberty's flame is also a tribute to Princess Diana by default.

An all-American grocery store in Paris sells U.S. "cuisine" like Pop-Tarts and Heinz ketchup to homesick ex-pats.

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

Medieval museum built over Roman baths that features famous tapestries of a lady and a unicorn.

Paris' fabled purveyor of exotic taxidermy and natural history curios.

The vast, legendary catacombs hold secrets much stranger than stacked bones.

The slender brass strip in Prague's Old Town Square was used to tell time from 1652 to 1918.