Places niallquinn Wants to Go

This brothel-turned-restaurant features plenty of surprises and elaborate, extravagant architecture.

A marvel of Byzantine engineering under the streets of Istanbul.

This waterfall is one of the most spectacular natural features in the Scottish Lowlands.

This bar is home to what's likely the oldest living jazz band in the world.

This former textile district now is now a thriving center for contemporary Chinese art.

A bright turquoise river cascades beautifully down stepped terraces in southern China.

This abandoned fishing settlement may well be the greenest village in the world.

What if all public housing projects had been designed by "the Pygmalion of modern architecture," not only their prototype?

This historic island prison holds one of the dungeons from the Count of Monte Cristo even though it is a work of fiction.

Philadelphia boasts one of the best — and most often overlooked — traditional Japanese gardens in North America.

The eerie remnants of an ancient forest were hidden under the sand for centuries.

A 22-million-year-old sandstone cave is a natural habitat for award-winning cheese.

Mural made of 100,000 pieces of hand blown glass, and one of the largest glass murals in the US.

Morocco's Argania trees are infested with nut-hungry goats.

This "dead marsh" sits among the largest sand dunes in the world, a forest frozen in time.

The second largest monolith in the world was once betrayed by its lover, Ben Aicha.

This remarkably well-preserved mosque stands amid an 11th-century caravansary.

Unexplained bald patches in the landscape grow and recede over time, as though they are somehow alive.

A seemingly endless landscape of pure salt stretches far across Bolivia.

Hundreds of caves filled with thousands of centuries-old statues and murals.

Thanks to the building of a life-giving reservoir, part of the Great Wall of China is now a dive site.

This historic iron-working village is now a ghost town so immaculate that it looks as though it was recently built.

A huge musical instrument played by the ocean.

A magical place that lets you play in and explore the world of Studio Ghibli.