Places Edited by Allison Meier

The last physical evidence of the Lewis and Clark trail is one of their autographs etched into this giant rock.

Built to bless whalers before their voyages, this Massachusetts church now features a ship-shaped pulpit.

This man-made mound monument was built out of soil from all across the Polish empire.

Austria's very first and only nuclear power station was completed but never used.

In Tucson a giant metal snake helps pedestrians cross a busy highway.

The home of the morbid art of corpse plastination is open for visitors to view the fascinating, but stomach-churning process.

These massive mitts are made of 30 tons of devotional bronze.

This Russian locomotive museum was once devoted just to Lenin's funeral before expanding to encompass Moscow's entire train history.

This French castle is said to have once held the Holy Grail but is now a gorgeous mountaintop ruin.

This massive blockhead sculpture hides an entire library.

The world's first and only escalator for lazy bicycles and their daunted riders.

This empty Detroit high school was too expensive to maintain or destroy.

The only remaining collection of flayed figures made by French "madman" Honoré Fragonard.

This enchanting Victorian estate was home to the world's first hydroelectric power generator.

An Albanian monument to the Communism that nearly crushed the country is now a crumbling wreck.

This Japanese-inspired labyrinth of hot springs is hidden in a Chilean forest.

The Denver airport is guarded by a 32-foot-tall sculpture of a demonic horse.

During the 19th century, you could pay for violence off a prix fixe menu on this Manhattan street.

The resting place of a Civil War celebrity's amputated limb.

This spacecraft-shaped water tower is only a part of the mysterious UFO mania in this Brazilian town.

After the famous composer died in Paris, his sister snuck his heart out of the country to honor his wish that it be buried in their native country.

Decades after testing the polio vaccine on unwitting patients, this historic mental hospital sits in ruin.

One of the tallest buildings in Iceland, and perhaps, the most visually impressive.

This jaw-dropping 19th-century bridge uses its reflection to form what appears to be a perfect circle.