Places mariairisinc Wants to Go

There are plenty of wonderful panoramic vistas in Edinburgh, but not many are hidden smack in the middle of the Old Town.

360° views of the city plus five floors of optical illusions and hands-on science.

This small museum in a 17th-century building honors three iconic Scottish writers.

The taxidermy remains of the first mammal ever cloned from an adult cell are on display in Edinburgh.

Go surfing on this urban wave, "hacked" by local surfers.

On high feast days, the entire blue-glass front of this modern church opens up to reveal the small wooden church inside.

The telescope that discovered Neptune.

This airport currywurst stand is made out of retro airplane parts.

This beautiful 19th-century temple stands atop the ruins of its predecessor.

A delightful but little-known public observatory and planetarium in Munich.

The scars of World War II are preserved on its walls.

A giant snail sculpture looking longingly at the German traffic museum.

An abandoned train station in Munich constructed for the 1972 Olympic games.

A fearsome dragon clings to a corner of Munich's city hall.

A stairway to heaven, or to nowhere at all.

Daily jousts and dancing barrel makers in Munich's mechanical clock.

Golden cobblestones remember a time when this small alley was used to avoid having to give a Nazi salute.

Tiny silver and copper fish set inside blue-green lights are like windows to the underwater world.

Henri Matisse's final masterpiece.

On a wall in linear London, a plaque hangs at the high water mark of one of the worst floods in fictional Kcymaerxthaereal times.

These mysterious Viking chess pieces spent centuries hidden on a remote Scottish island.

A quiet, semi-secret square with statues of Mahatma Gandhi, Virginia Woolf, and a conscientious objectors stone.

The library houses an incredible collection of some of the world's most impressive books and manuscripts.

The remains of the debtor’s prison that shaped Charles Dickens’ life and writing.