Places Edited by Rachel James

The first safe in this California town had to hold all the gold.

A preserved dragon's rib that remembers the legend of the founding of the city of Atessa.

A 200-year-old prison that now houses a peculiar crime museum.

A book collector's dream, this Toronto bookstore has the world's first "Biblio-Mat," a random book vending machine.

This blowhole is supposedly caused by a trapped monster.

It's not a typo, now say it five times fast!

This crescent-shaped sliver of sand is a magical haven for a herd of feral horses.

This rocky spread has been squeezed up directly from the bowels of the earth.

The oldest surviving synagogue in New York City is now a soaring art space.

An impressive monument to Poland's independence.

Monsters and miniatures are held in equal esteem at this wondrous museum.

Besieged by war, this castle ruin has crumbled into a peaceful picnic spot.

A forgotten remnant of the Soviet Union, Transnistria is an unrecognized country hidden behind a heavily militarized border between Moldova and Ukraine.

The industrial monstrosity known as Bagger 258 is a colossal mining machine built in the DDR - but now left for dead in a German field.

Once an opulent Art Nouveau hotspot, the Constanța Casino is one of Romania's most beautiful abandoned buildings.

The glacier tucked within a New Zealand rainforest.

The skyline of Montreal includes the silhouette of an unexpected fruit-shaped Canadian staple.

One woman's decades-long obsession with the "La Fée Verte."

Luxurious devotion and 500,000 images of Buddha in Myanmar.

France's national museum of scientific and industrial instruments.

The works of poetry's biggest names grace the walls of the city of Leiden, all carefully painted by hand.

Ample proof that watery ends make for well-preserved, millenia-old mummies.

These quaint French houses dangle precariously over a precipice.

Artistic cabins actually grow deep in the Canadian wilderness.