Places parmenides1 Wants to Go

A building facade covered with the statues of 11 giants of Tajik literature.

Hundreds of caves filled with thousands of centuries-old statues and murals.

A lonely beacon, precariously perched atop a remote sliver of rock.

Once a bustling fishing port, this semi-ghost town is now more than 90 miles away from the shore.

This impressive collection of rare books on ancient mysticism inspired author Dan Brown.

The small cliffside monastery known as the Tiger's Nest is said to be the meditation site of an 8th-century Buddhist master.

An autonomous republic of Orthodox monks.

Two churches shoot bottle rockets at each others' bell towers in an unusual Easter celebration.

This mysterious complex of abandoned yurts and fading murals was meant to be a center of science and spirituality in Kyrgyzstan.

This free, take-a-book shop seems like a trick but isn't.

This shop and gallery is a modern-day cabinet of curiosities, unassumingly positioned along an urban thoroughfare.

The peaceful space is adorned by paintings by the famed abstract artist Mark Rothko.

This eccentrically decorated palace is replete with grottoes, fountains, tunnels, and caves.

A counter-culture bookstore like no other hides in plain sight in the streets of Paris.

Time capsule of a museum, in which the Soviet Union remains alive and kicking.

The origin of this sinisterly shaped forest is rooted in mystery.

An outstanding piece of retro Sci-Fi architecture built into a sacred mountain.