Places katarina Wants to Go

This unauthorized stone mermaid was secretly carved out of public stone before being permanently preserved.

These chunky stone towers out in Lake Michigan are the key to Chicago’s drinking water.

It was originally part of a "terrible lizards" collection at the 1964 New York World’s Fair.

An unassuming store hides relics of its former life as the jazz club that hosted some of the best black performers of the 1920s and '30s.

These abandoned grain silos and tunnels are an urban exploration dream.

A curious collection of miniatures in a quiet corner of the Chicago Children's Museum.

One-of-a-kind preserved ruins of an abandoned 1880s church in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood.

A shining sculpture made of 3,115 lights, the number of visible stars in the Northern Hemisphere.

A colossal sculptural lion built by the same man who designed the Statue of Liberty.

A horse statue that receives constant makeovers from graffiti artists and locals.

Along the Rhine, about a mile from the historic Munster, learn the heartrending story of two lovers torn asunder, cast into unknown layers of time and space.

The spiral staircase hidden inside this giant Parisian column was likely built for Catherine de Medici's astrologer.

BDSM, 1930s Style.

Got apples?

Dedicated to the art of hunting, with juxtapositions of contemporary art.

A Parisian exterminator's shop whose storefront displays stuffed rats hanging from traps.

This charming cobbled backstreet is the most Instagramable street in Paris, much to the residents' annoyance.

A scandalous Art Nouveau collaboration that set Paris all atwitter at the turn of the 20th century.

An overlooked marble is the only surviving in-place 18th century example of the measurement that changed how we define distance.

Two awe-inspiring globes from the reign of the Sun King hang from the ceiling of France's national library.

Indents in the pavement are all that remain from a grisly death machine in Paris.

A wunderkammer of exoticism immortalized by Tom Waits.

Once the tallest building in the world, this abandoned church is now a monument to the destruction of WWII.

This beautiful Victorian ironwork masterpiece was built to keep London from smelling like poop.