Places aaronwyes Wants to Go

A giant portrait of an ancient king looms over the river.

This solitary monastery may hold the remains of Vlad the Impaler (but probably not).

This elaborately decorated, fairytale-like Romanian royal palace is one of the most striking castles in Europe.

A museum glorifying the life of Stalin, located in the city of his birth.

These Stalin-era industrial 'death traps' hang lifeless above the city

Fortified homes of highland warriors that are still in use today.

The charmingly disheveled clock tower of Tbilisi's puppet theater.

Rock-hewn monastery complex with hundreds of cave structures tucked away into the mountainside.

Ancient rock-hewn town that witnessed key events of Georgian history.

Underground monastery and fortress.

A mountain pass in Bulgaria's Balkan Mountains was the site of four historic battles.

A magnificent, glittering building tucked into a tiny Bulgarian mountain town.

The second-largest Jewish temple in Bulgaria was deserted after World War II, seized by the communist government and then abandoned again.

A striking symbol of the Bulgarian capital.

A collection of art from Bulgaria's time as a communist state.

This massive concrete sculpture is said to be the heaviest communist monument on Earth.

This historic black and white monastery is one of Bulgaria's architectural jewels.

An abandoned saucer-shaped monument in the Bulgarian mountains.

An apparition of Virgin Mary in Herzegovina.

The remains of the last Bosnian fortress to fall to the Ottomans are still standing.

There's a mini version of Iguazu Falls hidden in the Balkans, and it's got a rope swing.

These warring psychedelic crags commemorate an unsuccessful military operation.

This top-secret nuclear bunker hidden in a Bosnian mountain has been converted to a modern art exhibition space.

The perfectly preserved underground rooms where Churchill plotted the war against Germany.