This unreal Portuguese palace looks as though it's made from a pile of different castles.

This pub was 238 years old when it decided to revamp its image: It started serving Thai food.

An easily overlooked stretch of ornate window fronts and gaslight lamps that could be right from the pages of Dickens.

A small island less than half a mile from Venice is a forbidden island with a dark and twisted past.

The pile of books behind the dignified writer gave the statue a most undignified nickname.

According to tradition this is the oldest church in Venice, but its actual age is a mystery.

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

This Roman statue is missing a limb from when the Venetians stole it from Constantinople during the Crusades.

Originally a leper colony, the island is now an Armenian monastery that's home to an incredible manuscript library and eclectic museum.

Two stone columns flank the grand Venice square, but there were supposed to be three.

An extensive collection of reliquaries containing the bones of saints housed in the largest Catholic church in Venice.

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

The small peaceful island off the Venice tourist circuit is where the city began more than 1,500 years ago.

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

This abandoned island off the Venetian coast has been a radical monastery, a political prison, and a secret Nazi base.

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

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

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

Once a 19th-century brasserie, this McDonald's exterior celebrates Alsatian design and the "King of Beer."

This iconic Parisian bookstore doubles as the "Tumbleweed Hotel" for traveling writers.

This life-size replica of the Statue of Liberty's flame is also a tribute to Princess Diana by default.

Exquisite wall sculptures carved in secret by an early quarryman in an obscure corner of the Paris Catacombs.

High atop the Eiffel Tower is a small apartment built exclusively to entertain the science elite and make the rest of Paris jealous.

This massive library holds what was once the largest book collection in the world.