Places Ian Engweiler Wants to Go

A 15th-century monumental Latin inscription on this house celebrates Lorenzo Manilio's love for Rome.

This beautiful 150-year-old synagogue survived Italy's fascist period and the Second World War.

Once an ancient Roman bath, now a hotbed of geothermal energy and a hub for energetic innovations.

Meet the oldest inhabitants of this Italian hamlet, a series of oddly preserved mummies.

Inside features a display of how artistic crucifixes transformed throughout the centuries.

The entire known universe of the ancient Etruscans is held inside this bronze model of a sheep’s liver.

When occupying Nazi troops detonated a mine below, medieval frescoes were revealed in this small cliff-side hermitage.

Since 1999, this gelateria founded by a string instrument maker has been turning out some of Rome’s best scoops.

The oldest church in Mantua was buried for centuries under the facades of other structures.

This uniquely designed bridge served as the city gate for Comacchio.

This archaeological site built into a tuff outcrop is filled with rock dwellings, the ruins of a medieval castle, and a necropolis.

This house certainly has a unique decor.

Turtles swim in a pond surrounding a classical temple in this lush park in Vicenza.

The tomb of the mythological founder of Padua is not hidden in some obscure crypt, but stands right in the middle of the city square.

An abandoned piece of phallic art repurposed by locals into a makeshift fertility shrine.

The hermit's humble home is hidden near the forested peak of Monte Marrone.

This castle was once the home of one of the most powerful women of the Renaissance.

A freedman baker’s lavish tomb has a relief showing various stages of Roman bread making.

In medieval times this small stone seat was used as a bizarre way to punish insolvent debtors.

Its look is severe, but its location, isolated on a hill in the middle of the countryside, is particularly scenic.

This weird, elephant-shaped rock also hosts two ancient tombs.

A trail of footprints discovered after a landslide was left not by the Devil, as originally believed, but by an early human ancestor.

Though they look like Hobbit houses, these semi-underground stone structures were built for winemaking.

An intact, still operating pharmacy from the 18th-century filled with numerous artifacts and paintings.