Places Michael Woodruff Wants to Go

A 6,888-carat piece of turquoise that bears a striking resemblance to the first President of the United States.

From a T-rex to a teapot, a cast of artificial fossils illustrates New Mexico's history.

Albuquerque found the perfect use for tumbleweeds at Christmastime.

The most powerful laboratory radiation source in the world pulses with 1,000 times the electricity of a lightning bolt.

Owned by Native American women, this brewery is a celebration of indigenous culture in the American Southwest.

This pseudo-steampunk weapons facility is the world's largest wood and glue structure, and packs quite a wallop.

An abandoned amusement park based on the popular 1940s Red Ryder comic strip.

Eat like pre-Columbian Native Americans in this New Mexico restaurant within the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center.

Despite their macabre past, these hooks are said to bring good luck to those who touch them.

The only museum with its curator—and her pets—buried inside.

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

In the past, Renaissance sex workers were encouraged to entice customers on this bridge.

The small peaceful island off the Venice tourist circuit is where the city began more than 1,500 years ago.

Venice's island of the dead.

The marble facade hides a little-known medical museum with early surgical instruments and rare copies of canonical texts.

Armenian monks at an island monastery in the Venetian Lagoon make a rare rose petal jam.

Hanging within this medieval church are the bones of a beast allegedly slain by a fourth-century saint.

The plague quarantine island home to the alleged "Vampire of Venice."

A sinister pyramid in the Frari contains the heart of the famous neoclassical sculptor.

Venice's "Island of the Mad."

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

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

This Venice bookstore has resigned itself to constant flooding by keeping its books in bathtubs and boats.

This room of wonder is full of relics, from knights in armor to rare works of art.