Places escapementality Wants to Go

This dazzling three-story shop showcases the art and history of music boxes, a popular novelty in Japan.

A gorgeous, nostalgic café housed in a lofty old warehouse, lit only by petroleum lamps.

With over 10,000 lights, this engineering marvel lights up the city after dark.

First established in 741, this is one of the oldest Taoist temples in China.

The embalmed remains of the communist leader lie within a custom crystal coffin.

North Korea's massive art and propaganda factory now has an official gallery space in Beijing.

This smaller cousin of the Forbidden City has gone from ancestral sacrifice to tourist's whispers.

The most famous location in China was home to whole dynasties worth of imperial rulers.

A tiny museum dedicated exclusively to the tiny art that decorates matchboxes.

Huge stairway leads to this massive gallery.

Destruction from Armenia's 1988 earthquake inspired an artist's sculptures of scrap metal.

This small shrine is dedicated to the designer of the first Russian fighter jet and his brother, who became Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

Giant stone letters dedicated to the founder of Armenia's alphabet.

This medieval manuscript collection has some of the most obscure and ancient texts in the world.

What might be the largest completely Jewish town in the world outside of Israel now faces dwindling numbers and empty streets.

Swirling layers of white and red rock earned these mountains their festive nickname.

Tower with a double-helix spiral, adorned with letters of the Georgian alphabet.

At this rare mosque in Tbilisi, Sunni and Shia Muslims pray side by side.

Ruins of a former government building destroyed during the Georgian-Abkhaz war in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union.

Legend says these stone structures are where the doomed citizens of a vanished village sent themselves to die.

This extensive collection of vintage Soviet cars is the only one of its kind in the Caucasus.

This extraordinary, multi-pillared monument depicts the fascinating history of Georgia.

The second largest in the world, this massive underground void has its own subway.

A museum glorifying the life of Stalin, located in the city of his birth.