Places katherinehillier Wants to Go

This Tuscan lake hides a 13th century town that is still visible when the water recedes.

An ancient artistic garden parlor full of hidden water wonders.

This private skyway is filled with art and was expanded explicitly so that Hitler could appreciate a river.

A fairytale island floats in the middle of Italy's little-known Lake Orta.

This medieval Italian town is a sheer (and beautiful) cliffside defense.

This centuries-old Italian chapel hangs midway down a sheer cliffside.

A complex, nine-layer maze on the grounds of a Venetian doge's playground.

This former Roman Catholic Church still contains the embalmed hearts and organs of 22 popes.

David Sedaris called it "The greatest shop in the world."

This domed temple was built in a hidden cave mouth as a refuge for sinners seeking absolution.

Filled with goldfish swimming in a shallow pool of sea water, this ancient crypt is more wishing well than burial site.

Giant, pink stuffed rabbit on an Italian mountain.

Five candy-colored villages on the Italian Riviera.

The once forbidden "secret cabinet" of erotic art from excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

This 16th-century monastery has been turned into a surrealist architecture compound.

Sitting on an Italian hilltop is this surreal fortress built by the mad inventor of electrohomeopathy.

A large grotto built in the 16th century amidst Florence's famous Boboli gardens.

The oldest operating pharmacy in the world features 800-year-old recipes.

Hidden in an Italian forest is a completely homemade amusement park that has taken a lifetime to create.

The glowing blue Nymphaeum of Emperor Tiberius.

According to the local folklore, the myriad colors of this lake are the result of a lovelorn wizard's blunder.

Geothermal waterfalls in Tuscany.

Renaissance villa and gardens complete with a tormented colossus.

This Venice bookstore has resigned itself to constant flooding by keeping its books in bathtubs and boats.