Places Edited by Dylan Thuras

Grotto replete with mystical designs laid out in glued shell mosaics.

A castle built by an eccentric medieval enthusiast in suburban Ohio.

A mosaic-tiled house built by graveyard sweeper Raymond Isidore.

Fossils, railroads, and waterfalls!

The single richest source of elemental discoveries in the world.

An abandoned, unfinished mansion on grounds strewn with lava rocks.

Nine limestone rock stacks on Australia's "Shipwreck Coast."

The world's first and only natural nuclear reactor.

World's largest barrel containing an inn.

A rare water-powered funicular, it uses a huge tank of water and gravity to do its work.

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

This collection of solar timekeepers includes the world's first digital sundial.

A self-built mosaic house and sculpture park.

A sacred lake composed of over 300 separate pools of highly concentrated minerals.

Birthplace of the Tendai sect and home to the marathon monks.

An enormous park-like oasis, full of famous Chicagoans’ graves.

London's smallest police station is barely the size of a phone booth.

The largest medical and anatomical collection in France lies hidden from the public.

This derelict superstructure was a very important warning system for the Soviet military.

A New England curiosity cabinet, one hundred years on.

A museum dedicated to the history and exploration of both popular music and science fiction.

One of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World holds the world's tallest metal staircase.

A little sculpture with a large wardrobe.

Doris Duke's lasting collection of Islamic Art, hidden in a Hawaiian paradise.