Chicago's museum dedicated to the history of bondage and fetishism is more textbook than titillation.

This medieval castle is filled with an eccentric collection that ranges from ancient Egyptian artifacts to taxidermy to a mummified hand that was cut off during a duel.

This dreamlike museum is filled with the works of an influential surrealist artist whose name you may have never heard.

This old school, eccentric, and independent video rental store refuses to die.

The museum calls itself the "National Museum of the Paranormal" and is full of eerie oddities.

A staggering collection of photographs depicting medical, social, and historical change.

A quaint Russian village in the middle of a German metropolis.

The site of a concentration camp where inmates were made to take part in one of the largest counterfeiting operations in history is now hauntingly empty.

The "Prussian Versailles" that is as glorious today as when it was built.

Solar observatory doubles as a daring display of Expressionist architecture, much to Einstein's chagrin.

The ruined remains of the airport Claus von Stauffenberg departed in his failed attempt to kill Adolf Hitler.

Germany's Glienicke Bridge has a shady history of clandestine meetings, espionage, and spycraft.

This Berlin island is home to a flock of free-roaming peacocks, as well as a historic ivory folly.

This TV tower once secretly housed a GDR intelligence team.

This curious sculpture represents the perseverance needed to take to the skies.

The music is over at the Ballhaus Riviera Ballroom, but the ballroom remains in haunting disrepair.

A 12th-century fortress containing some of Berlin's oldest buildings.

The 1852 novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" lends its name to a subway station, a street, and several shops on the edge of Berlin.

This conical hill was built as a testing ground for an engineer known as the Glider King.

The non-native bovine herd was brought in to help conserve these Berlin wetlands.

An abandoned NSA listening post on Berlin's "Devil's Mountain."

This museum is home to a sugar sculpture of the Berlin Airlift Memorial.

Gardens representing parts of Asia, Europe, and the Mid East are tucked away among the Soviet-style buildings in East Berlin.

This concrete residential area doubles as an open-air gallery.