Places alessandralee Wants to Go

This Parisian fountain is a little bit fantasy and a little bit nightclub.

One of the greatest maze designer’s greatest mazes.

Medieval museum built over Roman baths that features famous tapestries of a lady and a unicorn.

Walk upon the mementos of the dead in this Parisian courtyard paved with medieval tombstones.

This whimsical castle of grottoes was the labor of love of a French postman, and one of the greatest achievements of outsider architecture.

Paris' linguistic guide to the international language of, yes, love.

A museum of carnival attractions where you are invited to ride the rides.

This iconic Parisian bookstore doubles as the "Tumbleweed Hotel" for traveling writers.

The avant-garde design was able to bypass strict Soviet regulations on architecture.

Siberian whale bones stand as cairns marking location of an ancient butcher yard.

An early-20th-century "dacha" village of quaint cottages curiously located in a modern part of Moscow.

Two islands just 4 km apart separated by an International Border and Date Line.

No one knows why ancient labyrinths were built on this tiny northern island.

Dozens of padlock-trees along the Moscow River.

Its front wall is striped with a menagerie of fantastic beasts and magnificent monsters.

The reason for the strange contortions in the trunks of these "drunken" pine trees in Russia is still a mystery.

The gorgeous entrances into the city's underbelly look more like grand halls than subway stops.

Legends of time travel and magical woodland creatures bolster the natural charm of this verdant sanctuary in the midst of Moscow.

It's hard to believe the dizzying patterns covering this abandoned mine are completely natural.

Nightmarish example of the unintended consequences of weapons testing.

A little church on a tiny island looks like something from a fairy tale.

Moscow's other, lesser known kremlin is a fairytale-like cultural complex modeled after Old Russia.

This Russian religious complex is a Frankenstein's chapel that includes influence from almost all the major faiths.

An 18th century wonder of the world, lost in WWII, re-created at the Catherine Palace.