Places piccolo8va Wants to Go

An independent naturist colony amidst 1000-year-old ruins.

A marble Lucifer hides behind the pulpit of this Gothic cathedral.

Unchanged for centuries, this medieval library keeps its books in chains.

This French castle is said to have once held the Holy Grail but is now a gorgeous mountaintop ruin.

A Gothic cathedral created from volcanic rocks.

Part modern art project, part traditional chapel, this see-through church is only substantial from the right angle.

This church sits upon a peaceful hill and a long, turbulent history.

Take a stroll through the hellish grotesques of Hieronymus Bosch in this elaborate Netherlands church.

A pilgrimage site where people ask Saint Dymphna to watch over those who are not of sound mind.

The not-quite-incorruptible St. Bernadette is perhaps the most beautiful of preserved saints—with a little help from Paris.

Lombardy poplars planted to imitate the size and shape of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Reims.

A modernist church in an ancient village.

This Netherlands museum holds a gloriously mechanical collection of ornate musical automata.

The attic of a four-century-old canal house hides a clandestine church.

Scale model of St. Peter's Cathedral (Rome) in the middle of a small Dutch town.

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

This small museum collects the Christian remembrances which would otherwise be forgotten.

Beneath the city of Lourdes, France is a massive, concrete church.

1920's reinforced concrete church by architect Auguste Perret changes the face of modern design.

Huge Russian Orthodox cemetery in danger of being converted into open public space.

This gruesome biblical parade celebrates the one day a year that a bit of Jesus' blood turns to liquid.

This French ghost town from World War II has been left as a memorial to German atrocities during World War II.

The largest underground church in Europe.

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