Places Gradius Wants to Go

Built to be the ideal penitentiary, this abandoned panopticon saw several revolts and even a prisoners' coup.

Housing the groundbreaking maps and globes of Gerard Mercator.

This enormous abandoned prison was once dubbed the "Bastille of Romania."

This former KGB building is now a museum memorializing the people who suffered during the Soviet regime.

Abandoned mini-mansions that were once intended for affluent Bangkok families now sit empty.

The decaying remains of a once-luxurious Soviet spa town.

A once grand hotel now sits eerily abandoned in the Catalan countryside outside Barcelona.

What was once a trend-setting, phrase-coining icon of architectural splendor is now a rotting, forgotten hulk.

A toxic ghost town sitting atop a massive coal fire.

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

A gleaming white and undulating tower marks the border between Georgia and Turkey.

Take respite inside this jaw-dropping church while climbing the volcano where Georgia's Prometheus was once chained.

Despite being tiny and rural this Georgian airport looks like a sci-fi boondoggle.

A cylinder monument with a spectacular vista commemorates a friendship that some say never existed.

Fortified homes of highland warriors that are still in use today.

These Stalin-era industrial 'death traps' hang lifeless above the city

Small church on top of a huge rock column.

An uber-secure, windowless tower of doom in the center of Manhattan is an NSA spyscraper.

A 16th-century horror show built in a lovely Italian garden.

A bizarre house filled with an astounding array of collections.

The world’s first penitentiary, meant to be humane, drove men insane.

These ruins witnessed the final gathering of the failed Jacobite Rebellion.

A serene desert oasis speckled with ancient artifacts.

This overgrown mountain village has been abandoned for nearly a century.