Places Paiva Wants to Go

Egyptian Revival movie palace abandoned for decades and restored in 2013.

A museum of magic with a Sadist past.

This museum houses an imposing skeleton army comprised of creatures great and small.

The Church of the Annunciation was carved into the face of a cliff, just like the rest of the town of Haute-Isle.

At this monastery, monks make raw-milk cheese and use excess whey to create methane that powers their hot-water system.

The former global standard for the exact mass of one kilogram sits under lock and key outside Paris.

This Gothic church houses ornate royal tombs and a magnificent gilded altarpiece.

A series of recreated fortifications mark George Orwell's path through the Spanish Civil War.

Designed in the Romanesque style, this structure was once a fortress monastery.

A medieval church built into an ancient cave.

This anatomical sculpture raises awareness about violence against women and promotes gender equality.

This narrow path was cut right into a French mountainside to feed the country's early naval expansion.

This awesome Spanish castle is so fantastical it was actually used on Game of Thrones.

A whimsical garden of outsider art in the Spanish countryside.

A Franco-era dam flooded (almost) everyone out of this centuries-old Aragonese town.

Sanctuary on a ridge near an ancient shrine to a "Black Madonna" built by the founder of Opus Dei.

This religious complex carved into a cliff is steeped in legends of miraculous stags and the Holy Grail.

Medieval ruins nestled within a breathtaking swath of Spanish nature.

A site outside Pedraza, Spain where a plaque tells a tale of seven-legged creatures that were said to have once lived in the area—in the fictional world of Kcymaerxthaere.

A somewhat mysterious biomedical museum housed inside a Spanish university.

One of the largest ossuaries in Spain is packed from floor to ceiling with bones.

This Arab fortress was once the largest citadel in Western Europe.

A charming Spanish village sits atop this natural limestone overpass.

The gaunt visage of this angular Christ giant is enough to put the fear of God into all who see it.