The only museum with its curator—and her pets—buried inside.

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

This 6th-century church has the largest and best-preserved collection of Byzantine mosaics outside Constantinople.

Italian poet Dante Alighieri is entombed in this small mausoleum in Ravenna, and his hometown of Florence has never been too happy about it.

The glowing blue Nymphaeum of Emperor Tiberius.

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

Southern Italy's spinning top village.

A lover's walk between hilltop towns, decorated with graffiti love notes.

Five candy-colored villages on the Italian Riviera.

The bomb-ravaged remains of of a colossal Neptune.

A slightly creepy gallery of plaster cast models in the same museum as Michelangelo's David.

The oldest operating pharmacy in the world features 800-year-old recipes.

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

In Florence's great Duomo, a 26 foot fresco honors a mercenary famous for attacking Florence.

Some say this medieval church is where the poet Dante married his wife and also met the love of his life.

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

Over 50 exquisite hand-painted Renaissance maps decorate a Medici storage room.

The middle finger of modernity.

A large grotto built in the 16th century amidst Florence's famous Boboli gardens.

This picturesque Umbrian city has a subterranean side that has long remained hidden.

This unique museum is home to over 5,000 puppets of all types.

Thousands of well-dressed mummies below a monastery.

Budapest's Communist-era statues, banished to the suburbs.

The highest point in North Carolina and the United States east of the Mississippi River, Mount Mitchell is named after argumentative explorer Elisha Mitchell.