Places Edited by Mitch Lang

Though strikingly beautiful, Seattle's other railway station is now largely forgotten.

An unusual and beautiful form of mass transit serves the city's steepest neighborhoods.

A small etching on the white marble parapet was written in runic script by a Viking mercenary.

Two identical statues by Fernando Botero, one blown to pieces in a terrorist bombing, the other donated as a gift for peace.

An ancient curse kept humans from living on the water, and now it's brimming with rare wildlife and is one of the most pristine rivers in India.

A shining sculpture made of 3,115 lights, the number of visible stars in the Northern Hemisphere.

Inside the unassuming cemetery chapel is a magnificent stained glass window and mosaics.

The upstairs reading room is packed with millions of rare books, literary manuscripts, and historical treasures.

One family's mission to exemplify sustainability took on a whole new life as a surprisingly beautiful home.

Mussolini gave Cincinnati a bronze statue of Romulus and Remus suckling at a wolf's teats.

This $3 million model train takes you through Chicago, Seattle, and the thousands of miles in between.

A psychedelic labyrinth on the San Francisco bay.

An art deco ice cream shop covered in vintage tiles.

This unusual structure may be on its way to becoming a cultural landmark in Toronto.

Designed by Buckminster Fuller, this relic of the 67 Expo survived fire and ice.

The hike through a narrow river flanked by the 2,000-foot-tall walls of Zion Canyon is one of the best in the world.

Defying all odds, this lonely little tree found a home on a log sticking out of a Canadian lake.

A roadside collection of over-sized iron creations that are a bit more macabre than most.

No one is sure if the world's fourth-largest diamond had been found in a rubbish heap or was pawned by Napoleon's mom.

Once the private home of China’s most legendary tycoon, getting inside this stunning mansion no longer requires an elite pedigree or acts of daring.

Building this tragically pointless stone barrier cost the lives of the prisoners made to build it.

More than half of this Indian palace is drowned but it looks all the more spectacular for it.

These mysterious ancient stone spheres were created by a civilization lost to time and are now mostly lawn ornaments.

This stunning gothic ruin was a casualty of the Indiana steel industry crash.