Places poppyhuskisson Wants to Go

Exquisite wall sculptures carved in secret by an early quarryman in an obscure corner of the Paris Catacombs.

A grotto-like lodge decorated with gilded mosaics, rocks and a noisy waterfall was the setting for the most sumptuous pleasure house of 1900s Europe.

The ruins of a Duke's bucolic dream, where camels once roamed alongside "Dutch" windmills and faux-Italian vineyards.

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

This whimsical castle of grottoes was the labor of love of a French postman, and one of the greatest achievements of outsider architecture.

The oldest stone house in Paris was built by its most famous alchemist.

The macabre collection of Jacques Sirgent, an expert scholar on the undead and all of their trappings.

The bones of some 7,000 soldiers killed in the historic Battle of Solferino are stored here.

This ancient altar emerges from the thick forests to reveal the mysteries of Etruscan sacrificial rituals.

Behind medieval walls in a corner of bustling Palermo is a breathtaking former mosque once inhabited by a wolf-taming hermit.

A spiritual sanctuary in a natural cave.

Vast network of air raid tunnels beneath Lombardy's capital.

The top of society once luxuriated in this world-class hotel, which continues to impress, even in ruin.

A line of abandoned, alien-like fortresses dot the mountains of North Italy.

Artist Diego Morlin's war between the natural and human worlds is a wanderer's delight.

A madman's personal garden filled with 1,000 sculpted heads.

Crumbling ruins of the thermal baths that once attracted royals and aristocrats from throughout Europe.

A star-shaped fortress town fort built in the geometric model of the Renaissance utopian city.

These gutted monastery ruins still stand proudly in the middle of the Italian countryside.

A domed disco abandoned since the '70s now attracts artists and explorers under its unique roof.

A fairytale-like medieval church perched atop a rocky cliff on Italy's "Coast of the Gods."

This abandoned island off the Venetian coast has been a radical monastery, a political prison, and a secret Nazi base.

People have been living in the cave houses on this Italian hillside since the Neolithic era.

A formerly opulent Italian village is now a crumbling ghost town that no one really knows what to do with.