italy

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

As can be expected from a centuries old church built in a canal city, the undercroft of this house of worship is beautifully flooded.

Go inside to really appreciate this 500-year-old technological masterpiece.

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

This palatial spiral staircase was so unusual the name "snail" was given to the noble family who built it.

Where Venice's gondolas go for a tune-up.

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

In Florence's great Duomo, a 26 foot fresco honors a mercenary famous for attacking Florence.

Crushed coral and crystals give the sand its signature coloration.

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

These medieval skyscrapers dominate the skyline of this small Tuscan town.

A fairy tale castle in modern Rome.

Architectural monsters are devouring this palace's every door and window.

The best preserved Paleochristian basilica in Rome hides a number of oddities and secrets.

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

Architectureal fantasy quarter of Rome.

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

The odd depiction of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus is rooted in the Catholic Church's eradication of Catharism.

The secret medieval communication system will whisk your words above the noise of the crowd.

Small on the outside, big on the inside, this church is an astonishing act of visual deception.

"The prettiest love letters in the world" ... or so said Lord Byron.

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

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

Filled with goldfish swimming in a shallow pool of sea water, this ancient crypt is more wishing well than burial site.

This 6th-century church has the largest and best-preserved collection of Byzantine mosaics outside Constantinople.

Italian poet Dante Alighieri is entombed in this small mausoleum in Ravenna, and his hometown of Florence has never been too happy about it.

The once forbidden "secret cabinet" of erotic art from excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

The remains of the left arm of the levitating philosopher-saint are kept in a 13th-century Neapolitan basilica.

One of the world's oldest working clocks is curiously missing the Zodiac sign of Libra.

Something's missing between the arcades of the Palazzo della Ragione in "the city of the three withouts."

The last moments of the ill-fated Pompeiians, frozen forever in plaster.

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

A fake medieval village in the middle of Turin.

Pilgrimage site for star-crossed lovers.