This charming Latvian lane doubled as Baker Street on the Soviet Union’s version of Sherlock Holmes.

A statue built to honor the elite soldiers who fought for Latvia during World War I.

A stone marker and sculpture in the city of Riga stake a claim for the very first community Christmas tree.

Latvia’s first skyscraper, nicknamed ‘Stalin’s birthday cake.’

The reconstruction of this prominent building fulfilled a long-written command.

Latvia's symbolic mountain-shaped national library is home to millions of cultural tomes.

This controversial monument was designed to lionize the Red Army, but also disheartened the Latvian people.

The oldest housing complex in Riga is a mini timeline of architectural trends.

What looks like a normal building is really a hollow facade hiding a subway vent.

Montmartre's sole surviving windmill became an iconic landmark for 19th-century painters, artists, and bohemians.

The water-powered carriages are long gone, but for over a century this funicular railway has been the fastest route to the highest point in Paris.

The first green space constructed on an elevated viaduct.

A large portion of this navigable canal runs under Paris's famed boulevards.

This structure atop a craggy cliff in one of the most beautiful parks in Paris boasts an unbeatable view.

Site of a classic 19th-century physics experiment to prove the earth is rotating.

This demon atop the Notre-Dame de Paris looks utterly bored.

This modest marker near Notre Dame identifies the very center of Paris.

This small, ingenious cannon once helped regulate Parisian life.

This off-limits room in the National Library of France is home to a system of pneumatic tubes, once used to bring books to readers.

This massive library holds what was once the largest book collection in the world.

Despite being considered a thoroughly American sport, basketball's oldest surviving playing field is found in the basement of a Paris YMCA.

Fortune tellers, snake charmers, poets, and storytellers all gather on this historic square in Morocco.

The thirteen wooden beams protruding from this historical building were once part of a hydraulic clock.

The other side is actually green.