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

This simple frog painting created by musician Daniel Johnston embodies the spirit of Austin.

Three hundred years of preserved Spanish colonial history in San Antonio.

A 131-year-old wunderkammer of Texas history.

An enormous pink granite batholith, long attributed with spiritual powers by the Tonkawa Indians.

Tracks near this Texas nature site were once thought to support the Creationist belief that man and dino coexisted.

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

Free public park and gardens filled with peacocks and peahens.

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

An emerald-green grotto just a short trip from Austin.

Source for a sizable portion of Egypt's freshwater supply is more than an optical illusion.

Charnel house at the foot of Mount Sinai.

This Soviet-era athletic and recreation facility is the highest ice skating rink in the world.

In Kazakhstan, a colorful cathedral with many lives once survived the most powerful earthquake in the region.

Time capsule of a museum, in which the Soviet Union remains alive and kicking.

A surprising and unconventional mosque hidden in the subsoil of Istanbul.

Climb a set of vertiginous stone steps to the top of this impressive ancient edifice.

Mediterranean castle on a tiny Turkish island.

This ancient city - home to nine civilizations - is soon to be buried under 200 feet of water.

Carvings in Turkey's Marble Road may have directed ancient Romans to a hidden brothel.

The ancient latrines of the Greeks, in all their public glory.

This former Imperial summer home was the venue for a royal slap that once echoed 'round the world.

The legendary luxury train passage is commemorated with a charming museum inside its former eastern terminus.

Over the centuries, this island paradise has done it all, from providing monks with ecclesiastical respite to sheltering an exiled Leon Trotsky.