A floundering Polish shipyard was once the soul of the Solidarity movement that capsized communism.

Come to this Polish museum to take a good, clean look at filth.

The site of the first battle of World War II.

This 700-year-old structure is one of the most unique architectural and historic monuments in Gdańsk.

This 13th century Gothic brick castle is the largest in the world by surface area.

This imposing 20th-century castle was abandoned before it was ever completed.

A collection of modern and vintage pinball machines housed in the cellar of a 15th-century building.

An underground city beneath Krakow's postwar socialist utopia.

This 14th-century monastery survived Turkish raids, Nazi occupation, and even a stint as a spot to store towels.

Homesick Syrian refugees head to this restaurant for a taste of Damascus.

A museum in the childhood house of a medical pioneer.

A series of sculptures beneath the waves promote ocean conservation and support coral reefs.

Few people have ever heard of, let alone visited, one of Turkmenistan’s most impressive natural attractions.

This famed Silk Road oasis was one of the largest cities in the world before it was destroyed by a Mongol horde.

A fiery crater has been burning in the Karakum Desert since 1971.

Sumptous memorial to a controversial independence.

A huge monument to a bizarre book written by Turkmenistan’s longstanding dictator.

An eccentric dictator's take on a Turkmen version of Disneyland.

If you want to get married in the White Marble City of Ashgabat, you should do it in this surreal disco ball building.

A dictator's gold statue once rotated to face the sun on a 75-meter high marble tower.

This harsh mountain path was built as a strange attempt to improve the health of Turkmen citizens.

The controversial final resting place of the equally controversial first president of Turkmenistan.

A memorial to the thousands of Turkmen soldiers and civilians who died in a bloody 1881 battle.

This gem of Moorish architecture is slowly disintegrating along the coast of this charming town.