Places johnbrandon Wants to Go

Baroque celebration of the end of the Great Plague of Vienna.

The crypt of the imposing Stephensdom holds royal intestines and thousands of skeletons.

This museum is dedicated to the little known ancient Roman history of Vienna.

This ornate Weser Renaissance house was also the home of an infamous witch hunter.

The Roman Emperor's lost summer home and grotto full of enormous sculptures sit along the Italian seashore.

This museum located in Fondi is also said to be the most haunted building in town.

Designed as a labyrinth, this subterranean prison was crafted without bars or doors.

This fairy-tale castle would make Dracula (who is said to have been imprisoned there) jealous.

This ancient walled garden turns fog into food.

London's creepiest cemetery was once the site of dueling magicians and mobs of stake-carrying vampire hunters.

A submerged archeological park still holds the wonders of a Roman Sodom.

Home to the world's oldest wooden building.

The deepest hole drilled in the name of science, where evidence of Precambrian life was found.

A rare example of an ancient Japanese hill castle believed to be the fortress of a legendary demon.

This little-known relic crypt holds stolen parts of a Roman Empress.

The oldest stone house in Paris was built by its most famous alchemist.

This precariously perched fortress was once ruled by a crow-worshipping baron.

A reproduction of a mysteriously preserved body found in the 18th-century and put on display for years before burial.

A tree that defies gravity grows in an ancient ruin.

Deceased nuns were placed on stone chairs to decompose, while the surviving nuns prayed near the lifeless bodies.

Once a 19th-century brasserie, this McDonald's exterior celebrates Alsatian design and the "King of Beer."

This mesmerizing medieval monastery-cave complex sits thousands of feet above ground overlooking a valley.

The not-quite-incorruptible St. Bernadette is perhaps the most beautiful of preserved saints—with a little help from Paris.

One of the few remaining examples of 19th-century London’s attempt to clean up its reputation.