Mathew Nelson's User Profile - Atlas Obscura
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Pisa, Italy

The Camposanto

Next to the Leaning Tower of Pisa is a cemetery home to ancient sarcophagi and disturbing murals.
Pisa, Italy

Guy Rope Anchors for the Leaning Tower of Pisa

The only visible reminders of an elaborate engineering project that kept the tower from reaching the tipping point.
Pisa, Italy

Orto Botanico di Pisa (Botanical Garden of Pisa)

The first botanical garden, a feather in the cap of the Grand Duke of Tuscany.
Pisa, Italy

'Tuttomondo'

A local student's chance encounter with Keith Haring led to the creation of one of Europe's largest murals.
Florence, Italy

Michelangelo's Hidden Drawings

The doodles of a genius line the walls of a secret room under the Medici Chapel, where they were hidden for nearly 500 years.
Florence, Italy

The Bull of Santa Maria del Fiore

This strange bovine gargoyle is said to have been put in as a passive aggressive form of revenge.
Florence, Italy

Il Porcellino

This bronze boar's snout has been rubbed to a golden sheen by visitors seeking good fortune.
Florence, Italy

Galileo's Middle Finger

The middle finger of modernity.
San Francisco, California

Vaillancourt Fountain

This concrete tangle of square pipes has stood as a proud thorn in the city's side since the '70s.
San Francisco, California

Exploratorium

San Francisco's newly reopened hands-on science museum.
San Francisco, California

Jack Early Park

This teeny-tiny park built by a San Francisco man in 1962 is mostly stairs.
San Francisco, California

Musée Mécanique

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

Stern of the Niantic

The only visible piece of San Francisco's most famous shipwreck.
San Francisco, California

Aquatic Park Tombstones

Visible below the waves are memorials to the city's Gold Rush dead.
San Francisco, California

The Wave Organ

A huge musical instrument played by the ocean.
San Francisco, California

Palace of Fine Arts

The last remaining relic of San Francisco's glittering 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.
San Francisco, California

'Wood Line'

Get lost in this haunting fairytale art walk through a man-made eucalyptus grove.
San Francisco, California

Yoda Fountain

There is no trying to fall in love with this Star Wars fountain, you just do or do not.
San Francisco, California

The Walt Disney Family Museum

Inside this museum, the history of the Walt Disney Family empire is on full display.
San Francisco, California

Fort Point

Beneath the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge is the “Gibraltar of the West Coast,” a fort built to protect the San Francisco Bay from naval attack.
San Francisco, California

Presidio Pet Cemetery

A monument to the love people have for their pets.
San Francisco, California

Battery Chamberlin

Guns that have been defending San Francisco since 1904.
San Francisco, California

Western Terminus of the Lincoln Highway

The United States' first transcontinental automobile road came to its end at this spot in San Francisco's Lincoln Park.
San Francisco, California

Lincoln Park

Shoot for par over the bodies of the dead on this cemetery-cum-golf course.