Places aridigi Wants to Go

What happens when you cross a mayor and a painter?

A museum dedicated to secret surveillance.

In the heart of Tirana, this underground nuclear bunker has been transformed into a museum.

Bronzes and busts that once stood in the city's main squares are now relegated to a small hidden courtyard.

A memorial to the atrocities of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania.

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

Once the fallout shelter of a dictator, this sprawling bunker is now a combined history museum and contemporary art gallery.

The elliptical citadel resisted the advance of the mighty Ottomans several times, thanks to the military prowess of the "Dragon of Albania."

A temple dedicated to the 13th-century Alevi Turkish dervish credited with bringing Islam to the Balkans.

This beautifully preserved Ottoman house is steeped in history.

A naturally beautiful, seemingly bottomless deep blue spring.

The largest Roman amphitheater in the Balkans once held over 20,000 people, but managed to lay hidden for hundreds of years.

One of the best examples of a Byzantine period monument in Albania.

A fascinating little project dedicated to preserving the charming historic doors of Durrës.

This palace offers an 18th-century European take on Chinese design and architecture.

An abandoned shopping gallery built during Fascist Italy tucked in the center of Palermo.

A study of Fascist era Art Deco design in Italy.

This unique museum is home to over 5,000 puppets of all types.

This uncanny fresco celebrating the "triumph of death" was split into four pieces to be moved to another museum.

Why a column on the entrance is inscribed with a verse from the Quran is one of Sicily's many mysteries.

This Arabesque Italian castle was built with a primitive, if ingenious, air-conditioning system.

This skeletal, unfinished Gothic church once housed a miraculous masterpiece by Raphael.

This triumphal 16th-century arched gateway leads to the oldest street in Palermo.

Cave shrine on Monte Pellegrino.