This shifting North Carolina sand dune is an odd little desert surrounded by oceanic forest life.

Once adorning a New York skyscraper, these reclaimed ruins now haunt an Indiana park.

The newsstand that never closes its doors—well, almost never.

The Flatiron Building's storied West Coast cousin is a lot more into religion.

A massive ultra-modern church presents a science-fiction view of Catholicism's inclusive future.

This Oakland fairytale kingdom, fiercely devoted to childlike whimsy, was an early inspiration for Disneyland.

Dive bar built out of the remains of a whaling ship.

Bonsai garden in Oakland is curated by the first non-Japanese female bonsai master in the United States.

A collection of 20th-century automata, penny arcade games, and musical contraptions.

A collection of artifacts from Maryland's maritime past.

Baltimore's classic clock tower was once topped by a rotating, 20-ton medicine bottle.

A dead saint, a deadly poison, and a mysterious holy ooze.

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

The martyr's wax-enhanced skeletal remains lie preserved in a glass case in the Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome.

Installed in an act of one-upsmanship, the annual sundial in this church is also a symbolic victory for the Gregorian calendar.

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

A master of trompe-l'oeil creates a stunning, tourist-fooling dome out of a flat ceiling.

Southern Italy's spinning top village.

An abandoned quarry hides an open-air gallery of huge sculptures, some made from the rubble of 9/11.

People have been living in the cave houses on this Italian hillside since the Neolithic era.

A spiritual sanctuary in a natural cave.

In an odd geographic anomaly this city borders two different states on opposite sides of town.

A 200-year-old bar with a cheeky name claims to have served Edgar Allan Poe his final drink.

An almost life-sized elephant named Ms. Ellie greets visitors at this jumbo-themed museum.