Paris, France
145 Rue Lafayette
What looks like a normal building is really a hollow facade hiding a subway vent.
Places I've been
Places this traveler has marked as been there.
Paris, France
What looks like a normal building is really a hollow facade hiding a subway vent.
Paris, France
Exquisite wall sculptures carved in secret by an early quarryman in an obscure corner of the Paris Catacombs.
Paris, France
An "inside out" building in the historical center of Paris, featuring Europe’s largest modern art museum.
Paris, France
This iconic Parisian bookstore doubles as the "Tumbleweed Hotel" for traveling writers.
Paris, France
France's most famous cemetery, with some of its most curious tombs.
Paris, France
The vast, legendary catacombs hold secrets much stranger than stacked bones.
Venice, Italy
In the past, Renaissance sex workers were encouraged to entice customers on this bridge.
Venice, Italy
This deconsecrated church has seen many uses, from a tobacco storehouse to a cinema.
Venice, Italy
The pile of books behind the dignified writer gave the statue a most undignified nickname.
Venice, Italy
This Roman statue is missing a limb from when the Venetians stole it from Constantinople during the Crusades.
Venice, Italy
The only museum with its curator—and her pets—buried inside.
Venice, Italy
Thousand-year-old Viking runes adorn an ancient Greek lion at the entrance to the Venetian Arsenal.
Venice, Italy
Two stone columns flank the grand Venice square, but there were supposed to be three.
Venice, Italy
An extensive collection of reliquaries containing the bones of saints housed in the largest Catholic church in Venice.
Venice, Italy
100 year tradition of fist fights, marked by marble footsteps.
Venice, Italy
This palatial spiral staircase was so unusual the name "snail" was given to the noble family who built it.
Venice, Italy
This Venice bookstore has resigned itself to constant flooding by keeping its books in bathtubs and boats.
Maltby, England
Legend has it the famous Robin Hood would attend mass at this 12th-century Cistercian abbey in Sherwood Forrest.
Retford, England
One of the earliest large-scale "hyper" roofs in the U.K. is now a derelict roadside attraction.
Mansfield, England
The largest oak in England is said to have been the hideout of Robin Hood and his Merry Men.
Arkwright Town, England
When methane gas started seeping up from the ground, they picked up and moved the entire town.
Bolsover, England
This restored 17th century "conduit house," often mistaken for a watchtower, actually supplied water to nearby Bolsover Castle.
Worksop, England
A gorge full of caverns where early humans lived alongside cave hyenas, giant mammoths and wooly rhinoceroses.
Shireoaks, England
This centuries-old canal known as the Cuckoo Dyke has a staircase of locks suitable for a giant.