Places maurverick Wants to Go

Legends, sculptures, and unique tombs can be seen lurking in these connected cemeteries.

This Ecuadorian cemetery is home to a jaw-dropping topiary wonderland.

Stare out over the lagoon and beyond from this 10th-century campanile on the island where the city of Venice began.

This Roman statue is missing a limb from when the Venetians stole it from Constantinople during the Crusades.

Thousand-year-old Viking runes adorn an ancient Greek lion at the entrance to the Venetian Arsenal.

This palatial spiral staircase was so unusual the name "snail" was given to the noble family who built it.

This community on a small Venetian island has taken to painting their houses in bright neon hues.

As can be expected from a centuries-old church built in a canal city, the undercroft of this house of worship is beautifully flooded.

One of the best collections of Byzantine art housed in a magnificent, 19th-century neoclassical home.

This gem is often wrongly overshadowed by the larger, newer Metropolis church in Athens.

Europe's longest Hornbeam tunnel.

A fascinating and enormous collection of natural history exhibits stained by a dark colonial legacy.

A lovely biographical museum in the artist's home of 24 years.

The former home of a trailblazing surrealist is still filled with haunting dolls and grim paintings.

Housing the groundbreaking maps and globes of Gerard Mercator.

Most prolific publishing house in the 1600s open to the public.

To enter this cluttered-yet-cozy sanctum of Belgian brews, ring the bell and tell the gatekeepers you've come “to taste beer.”

The "stairway to heaven" lookout tower was built to resist weather, arson, and the laws of physics.

Somewhere there is a giant who can no longer poop, but now travelers can stay inside his anus.

Only museum in the world devoted to bookbinding and book arts holds a permanent collection representing five centuries.

This bike path traverses the treetops.

This bike path was sunk below water level for maximum wonder.

This small corner bar is home to a rare 1930s dance organ that still plays tunes for one Euro.

This Greek temple, open only an hour a day, was the site of a war of tastes between an architect and an artist.