Places escapementality Wants to Go

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

The crypts of Capuchin friars decorated with the bones of over 4,000 friars, including an entire "crypt of pelvises."

Installed in an act of one-upsmanship, the annual sundial in this church is also a symbolic victory for the Gregorian calendar.

This community on a small Venetian island has taken to painting their houses in bright neon hues.

A small island less than half a mile from Venice is a forbidden island with a dark and twisted past.

The plague quarantine island home to the alleged "Vampire of Venice."

Venice's "Island of the Mad."

This abandoned island off the Venetian coast has been a radical monastery, a political prison, and a secret Nazi base.

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

This abandoned Slovenian military barracks has become a punky-political art squat.

A whimsical bridge adorned with decorative dragons.

Martin Bricelj Baraga's monolithic sculpture measures the blueness of the sky, and changes color to match it.

The mouldering remains of a disgraced British children's icon are hidden in the brush of a public park.