Places leighadlr Wants to Go

Charles Dickens was not a fan of the ghastly wall dressings in this 6th century church.

This ancient Roman prison is decorated with an upside-down cross not as blasphemy but as saintly tribute.

This Roman arch marks the location of an ancient gate at one of the Seven Hills of Rome.

One of seven Jewish catacombs in Rome and one of only two open to the public.

Installed in an act of one-upsmanship, the annual sundial in this church is also a symbolic victory for the Gregorian calendar.

One of several skulls claiming to belong to the beheaded St. John the Baptist is on display at this Roman church.

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

A collection of objects supposedly singed by the hands of souls in purgatory.

Jesus' footprints and the first catacombs in the world.

The skull of the patron saint of lovers lies in the Basilica di Santa Maria in Cosmedin—maybe.

At the crypt of St. Mary of Eulogies and the Dead you are left alone to ponder mortality among piles of skulls.

The yawning maw of this pagan visage is said to bite off the hands of liars.

A master of trompe-l'oeil creates a stunning, tourist-fooling dome out of a flat ceiling.

Hundreds of lucky felines haunt the ruins where Caesar was murdered.

The crypts of Capuchin friars decorated with the bones of over 4,000 friars, including an entire "crypt of pelvises."

Exquisite wall sculptures carved in secret by an early quarryman in an obscure corner of the Paris Catacombs.

With a history of slaughter, feast, and famine, remnants of the pork industry decorate this area--even its church.

This former “ante-chamber to the guillotine” has been refurbished to illustrate the brutal history of French justice.

Architect Le Corbusier built his friend a cubist house to match his impressive collection of cubist art.

The recovered bones of martyrs slaughtered during The Terror are on display in this church crypt.

A popular shrine where the Blessed Virgin allegedly appeared in 1830, displaying a holy armchair and two incorruptible remains of Lady Saints.

The history of radiation is on safe display at the foot of a radiation science laboratory.

Behind the pink curtain, Au Bonheur du Jour, an art gallery of erotic archives.

The vast, legendary catacombs hold secrets much stranger than stacked bones.