The only museum with its curator—and her pets—buried inside.

The marble facade hides a little-known medical museum with early surgical instruments and rare copies of canonical texts.

Thousand-year-old Viking runes adorn an ancient Greek lion at the entrance to the Venetian Arsenal.

Hanging within this medieval church are the bones of a beast allegedly slain by a fourth-century saint.

Armenian monks at an island monastery in the Venetian Lagoon make a rare rose petal jam.

A sinister pyramid in the Frari contains the heart of the famous neoclassical sculptor.

Stare out over the lagoon and beyond from this 10th-century campanile on the island where the city of Venice began.

A copy of the famous statue can be found in this Florence piazza, along with one of the most breathtaking views of the city below.

This private skyway is filled with art and was expanded explicitly so that Hitler could appreciate a river.

Over 50 exquisite hand-painted Renaissance maps decorate a Medici storage room.

The largest and most famous wax anatomical collection anywhere in the world.

A large grotto built in the 16th century amidst Florence's famous Boboli gardens.

The oldest operating pharmacy in the world features 800-year-old recipes.

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 Rome’s Jewish ghetto, a 200-year-old bakery still makes the neighborhood’s historic sweets.

An abandoned Roman salami factory has found new life as an art space home to 200 squatters.

One of several skulls claiming to belong to the beheaded St. John the Baptist is on display at this Roman church.

This beautiful park on the outskirts of Rome protects the ruins of two colossal ancient aqueducts.

The final resting place of the poets Shelley and Keats.

The skull of the patron saint of lovers lies in the Basilica di Santa Maria in Cosmedin—maybe.

At the crypt of St. Mary of Eulogies and the Dead you are left alone to ponder mortality among piles of skulls.

The underground sanctuary of a mysterious ancient cult.

Rome's semi-secret peephole vista is also a former Crusader stronghold.

Down a pint of ale where the Bishop of Ely's servants slept in 1546.