Places Mark H Wants to Go

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

One of the most easily accessible examples of the rare 1960s UFO houses.

This massive statue is the personification of Bavaria and the first colossal statue of the modern period composed of bronze.

A stairway to heaven, or to nowhere at all.

A subterranean display of public art and architecture.

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

A small square plaque marks a failed assassination attempt that could have changed history.

It’s not hard to see why the historic Peabody Conservatory of Music’s library has been described as a “cathedral of books.”

These crumbling towers are some of the last remnants of a centuries-old Vietnamese culture.

Giant pagoda houses the car that drove Thích Quảng Đức to his death by self-immolation.

Perhaps the only one of its kind, the nearly-forgotten site once held mortal (and rigged) gladiatorial games between tigers and imperial war elephants.

An extravagant monument to an extravagantly unpopular Emperor.

A gift from the Soviet Union in the 1980s, this is the only statue of the Soviet dictator in Southeast Asia.

Monument to a brutal, ineffectual US bombing campaign and a sobering reminder of the human cost of the Vietnam War.

Under Hanoi’s medieval citadel sits a secret military headquarters from the final years of the Vietnam War.

Life-sized painted illusions let pedestrians blend in with the street art.

Twice a day a speeding train passes only inches from the homes of this residential neighborhood.

The notorious "Hanoi Hilton" where Vietnamese colonial subjects and later American POWs, including John McCain, were imprisoned.

Unbeknownst to many, this fountain was erected as a tomb and still holds the remains of a Frenchman.

The spot where the two men ate together now stands enclosed in glass.

A French-Colonial era collection of taxidermy and wet specimens, secreted away in the National University of Hanoi.

This striking landscape in northern Vietnam contains both geological and archaeological wonders.

This unique formation is characterized by hexagonal basalt rocks stacked in unique formations.

This bullfrog grew to an alleged weight of 42 pounds on a diet of whiskey, baked beans, and June bugs.