Places MatthewSperling Wants to Go

19th-century operating theatre in which the use of ether was first demonstrated - plus, a skeleton and a mummy!

Dim sum, served in a grand old theater.

An enormous, inside-out glass globe built in 1935.

The former locus of Boston's high culture has been shuttered and buried for over 70 years.

Painstakingly built dioramas sit unnoticed in a Boston office building.

The Midwest's reigning king of surplus stores is full of nothing you need and everything you want.

The basement bowling alley of this St. Paul dive bar is decorated with thousands of dollar bills.

An unusual assortment of art, furniture, and other curiosities.

A 115-year-old restored German dining hall awaits those who venture beneath the Minnesota State Capitol.

These curious caverns have been home to mushrooms, gangsters, and disco.

This unassuming bridge is most likely one of Michelangelo's unfinished masterworks.

Everything from fried brains to stewed lungs are on the menu at this nose-to-tail spot.

The spot where the fascist dictator made some of his most famous speeches including declaring war on Britain and France.

One of the most important yet well-hidden museums dedicated to the history of medicine.

Since 1999, this gelateria founded by a string instrument maker has been turning out some of Rome’s best scoops.

The Pope’s secret escape route.

A hospital where antique dolls are given new life.

Italian horror legend Dario Argento’s own shop hides a sinister museum-dungeon in the basement.

Dishes are packed with flavor at one of the only Singaporean restaurants in Paris.

A unrivaled and rather horrifying collection of wax dermatological models.

BDSM, 1930s Style.

The Argonaute submarine was the French navy's pride and joy in the 1950's.

Stroll through retro Paris while shopping for old postcards and discarded doll heads.

The mummified heart of Louis XVII, the lost dauphin of the French Revolution.