Places Ian Engweiler Wants to Go

If you want to talk to the Pope you will have to stare down this surreal vision of Jesus rising from a nuclear hell.

This small Roman arch was transformed into a dwelling by the founder of the Trinitarian Order.

A 50-foot-tall replica of the infamous lamp from 'A Christmas Story' illuminates this small town.

This church, better known for its weeping portrait of the Virgin Mary, also houses the world's oldest existing piece of taxidermy.

In Majella National Park, these stone dwellings harken back to the region's pastoral history.

The mysterious “eyes of the Devil” dot a street in the occult center of Italy.

Once the home of a renowned slaughterhouse, formerly working-class Testaccio is still the place to go for Roman offal dishes.

The 16th-century son of Sienese nobility carved this hermitage out of volcanic rock.

A medieval tower with a suspended iron cage used as an open-air jail for criminals who were exposed as a warning.

A small town lost in the mountains of southern Italy hosts the childhood home of one of the most famous saints of the 20th century.

Roman-style pizza al taglio arrives here with magnificent, crackly crust.

It's believed that the dead were once taken out of houses through these now walled-up doors.

This tiny chapel withstood a massive mudslide and flash flood.

Fried artichokes and other Roman–Jewish classics are executed with care at this no-frills cafeteria.

This historic line is a remnant of an ambitious and unconventional project that today provides panoramic views of the Ligurian mountains.

This beautiful Romanesque church preserves stunning medieval frescoes and the excavations of a Roman market town.

Nobles would stage mock naval battles on this large lake at the Royal Palace of Caserta.

Locals pay their respects at a shrine to soccer player Diego Maradona—which claims to contain a real lock of his hair.

Only three columns survive from this ancient temple in the town of Cori.

Numerous stone coffins from different centuries, lined up in a sixth century basilica.

This sculpture of a rhinoceros suspended above a city square is meant to evoke the weight of the human condition.

This massive rock balanced for thousands of years being tossed here during a volcanic eruption.

For centuries, this town's hot springs have been embraced by rich and poor—and even by Popes.

A literary park dedicated to the memory of a filmmaker, writer, and intellectual who was killed in 1975.