Places Emily Kemp Wants to Go

The most impressive example of contemporary Romanian architecture in wood

This metro station doubles as an unintentional paleontology museum.

An old spa town in the mountains of Romania where, according to legend, the great hero Hercules once bathed.

This museum offers a journey back to the Belle Epoque era of Romania.

The Natural History Museum that time forgot.

A giant portrait of an ancient king looms over the river.

The romantic botanic tunnel feels like a well-kept secret.

A countryside Romanian cemetery filled with colorful crosses bearing lyrical, ironic, or satirical rhymes.

The legendary cliffside castle of three-time Voivode of Wallachia, Vlad the Impaler.

Some call this eerie forest of crooked trees the "Bermuda Triangle of Romania."

This massive underground salt mine now holds a sci-fi theme park in its depths.

This solitary monastery may hold the remains of Vlad the Impaler (but probably not).

This once-derelict building is now one of the most beautiful bookstores in the world.

This elaborately decorated, fairytale-like Romanian royal palace is one of the most striking castles in Europe.

This fairy-tale castle would make Dracula (who is said to have been imprisoned there) jealous.

An old asylum graveyard that's been abandoned for half a century attracts those seeking a dark thrill.

Prague's "Little Hanoi" is one of the commercial centers of Czechia's Vietnamese community.

Art Nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha spent 18 years creating these monumental paintings of Slavic history and mythology.

A folk-art cottage and hotel straight from a Slavic fairy tale.

Visitors flock to the historic birthplace of radiobalneology for its therapeutic radium treatments.

Before serving as James Bond's Casino Royale, this Victorian-era spa catered to the world's elite.

These 17th-century mummies are no longer naturally preserved, but remain on display today.

Folklore says this medieval fortress was plopped atop a portal to hell to trap the demons below.

Enormous sandstone towers loom within a Czech forest.