Sam Sutherland's User Profile - Atlas Obscura
Loading map...
Rhodes, Greece

Street of the Knights

One of the best-preserved medieval streets in Europe.
Nafplio, Greece

Lion of Bavaria

This slumbering beast honors the Bavarian soldiers who died in Greece during a 19th-century typhoid outbreak.
Nafplio, Greece

Church of Agioi Pantes

A staircase made of gravestones leads up to this church built into a giant rock.
Nafplio, Greece

Church of Agios Spyridon

The historic building has preserved human organs, unusual hexagrams, and scars from a political assassination.
Delos, Greece

The Temple of Dionysos

Giant marble phalluses on the sacred island of antiquity.
Meknes, Morocco

Prison de Kara

Designed as a labyrinth, this subterranean prison was crafted without bars or doors.
San Gimignano, Italy

The Museum of Medieval Torture

Medieval torture techniques with a modern conscience.
Rome, Italy

Pasticceria Boccione

In Rome’s Jewish ghetto, a 200-year-old bakery still makes the neighborhood’s historic sweets.
Rome, Italy

Piè di Marmo (Marble Foot)

A massive marble foot is tucked away in a small alley near the Pantheon.
Rome, Italy

Hendrik Christian Andersen House Museum

The former home of an Italian artist is now a shrine to his ambitious works.
Rome, Italy

'Il Babuino' ('The Baboon')

Romans decided this 16th-century "talking statue" was so ugly, they named it after a primate.
Rome, Italy

Elephant and Obelisk

A detailed pachyderm supports Rome's smallest Egyptian obelisk.
Rome, Italy

Trevi Waterfall

A magnificent waterfall is also home to the remains of a Roman hydraulic engineering system.
Rome, Italy

Mausoleum of Augustus

This large, circular tomb is the final resting place of the first emperor of Rome.
Rome, Italy

Metropoliz Museum of the Other and the Elsewhere

An abandoned Roman salami factory has found new life as an art space home to 200 squatters.
Rome, Italy

Passetto di Borgo

The Pope’s secret escape route.
Rome, Italy

Domus Aurea

The engineering wonder and pleasure dome of a much-maligned emperor still holds undiscovered secrets.
Rome, Italy

Zuccari Palace

Architectural monsters are devouring this palace's every door and window.
Rome, Italy

The Aventine Keyhole

Rome's semi-secret peephole vista is also a former Crusader stronghold.
Rome, Italy

Santa Maria della Concezione Crypts

The crypts of Capuchin friars decorated with the bones of over 4,000 friars, including an entire "crypt of pelvises."
Florence, Italy

Santa Maria Novella Pharmacy

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

Galileo's Middle Finger

The middle finger of modernity.
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

Massimo Listri Foundation

An extraordinary house museum and cabinet of curiosities in the heart of Florence.