"Stairs of the Turks", a chalky white cliff eroded conveniently into stairs, allowing for easy pillaging.

The famous sculptor left his mark on this Italian wall in an internationally protected example of street art.

This centuries-old Italian chapel hangs midway down a sheer cliffside.

A sunken idol welcomes parishioners to Davy Jones' Locker.

This domed temple was built in a hidden cave mouth as a refuge for sinners seeking absolution.

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

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

Stalactites and stalagmites in a beautifully lit cave.

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

An alchemist's "magic door" stands in the middle of a Roman park.

A fairytale island floats in the middle of Italy's little-known Lake Orta.

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

Dug as a secret royal escape route, the tunnel became a wartime bomb shelter and dumping ground for vintage cars.

An underground paleo-Christian burial site composed of the remains of several cemeteries and Basilicas.

These "anatomical machines" are only one of the many strange items in this Italian crypt.

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

The burial place of an obscure North African saint was turned into a macabre body preservation factory for the 17th-century Neapolitan elite.

The place to be if you love vintage Swedish cars.

A Very Low Frequency transmitter you can tune in on your PC.

Bored potato-guarding Nazis etched their thoughts onto a brick storage building in Copenhagen's Meatpacking District.

An abandoned lighthouse awaits its destiny: being buried under shifting sand.

This Danish rock field is actually a sprawling ancient cemetery holding the bodies of 700 Vikings.

The photographs of "fairies" that fooled much of the world (including the creator of Sherlock Homes) were taken at this English stream.

One of the last doorless, continuously moving elevators still in use in the U.K.