Places Augie Wants to Go

This Venice bookstore has resigned itself to constant flooding by keeping its books in bathtubs and boats.

As can be expected from a centuries-old church built in a canal city, the undercroft of this house of worship is beautifully flooded.

This poignant art installation raises awareness of violence against women.

This grisly effigy displays an early Christian martyr who was skinned alive and beheaded.

One of the world’s smallest bars, just 13 square feet, is brimming with speakeasy flair.

Small on the outside, big on the inside, this church is an astonishing act of visual deception.

This giant middle finger statue sends an unambiguous message to Italy's bankers.

The secret medieval communication system will whisk your words above the noise of the crowd.

Renaissance hospital featuring a rotating door into which unwanted babies were dropped.

An extraordinary house museum and cabinet of curiosities in the heart of Florence.

Drink wine handed out through a window as part of an age-old tradition.

The oldest operating pharmacy in the world features 800-year-old recipes.

Memorials at a Florence railway station remember the citizens who were deported from Italy and sent to extermination camps.

The middle finger of modernity.

The ruins of the largest gladiatorial school in Rome are largely hidden under modern streets.

The engineering wonder and pleasure dome of a much-maligned emperor still holds undiscovered secrets.

A fairy tale castle in modern Rome.

This Roman arch marks the location of an ancient gate at one of the Seven Hills of Rome.

An alchemist's “magic door” stands in the middle of a Roman park.

The "Great Sewer" of ancient Rome is one of the oldest sewer systems in the world, and is still in use.

The skull of the patron saint of lovers lies in the Basilica di Santa Maria in Cosmedin—maybe.

The yawning maw of this pagan visage is said to bite off the hands of liars.

A monumental fountain in Rome features a large statue of Moses that has been criticized for centuries.

This communist behemoth is the heaviest building in the world and a legacy of a brutal regime.