Places AwkwardInPublic Wants to Go

The remains of an entire Roman city can be explored in this interactive museum.

The remains of a 13th-century Romanesque church lie abandoned on a hillside.

A seemingly unassuming palace near Budapest hides a stupendously decorated hall.

A collection of intricate sculptures so small they have to be seen through a microscope.

A two-way chairlift system between Zugliget and the highest point in the city.

Legions of Roman soldiers bathed in this ancient spa complex under a Budapest transit station.

This Hungarian castle was built out of cardboard and wood until it proved so popular that it got upgraded to stone.

A Trabant car, a kangaroo statue, and a plethora of plants take over this abandoned-factory-turned-bar.

The metal leaves on this tree are engraved with the names of Holocaust victims.

This building has survived for more than a century and remains virtually untouched.

A trail of iron footwear stands as a monument to the thousands executed along this riverbank during WWII.

A Lycian city of the dead carved into the hillside of Southern Turkey, complete with startlingly human touches.

Roman ruins, natural methane fires and a lovely beach.

In this historic region, homes and churches are carved into ancient volcanic rock formations.

Founded in the 4th-century, the town of Pernik plays host to the Surva Carnival⁠—a magnificent display of masked Kukeri dancers.

This ancient statue of Dionysus lies unfinished and abandoned in one of Greece's oldest quarries.

Giant marble phalluses on the sacred island of antiquity.

A two thousand year old brothel uncovered in Northern Greece.

"Holy Wisdom" overlooks the city that became its namesake.

Underneath this Byzantinian church lies a necropolis filled with ancient tombs and the ruins of previous churches.

A striking symbol of the Bulgarian capital.

At this ancient settlement at the foot of Mount Babadağ, honeycomb tombs are carved into a round cliff.

The largest Neolithic ruins in the world hide a notably clean prehistoric metropolis.

One of the most exquisite Lycian hilltop citadels in Turkey.