A small island less than half a mile from Venice is a forbidden island with a dark and twisted past.

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

Stare out over the lagoon and beyond from this 10th-century campanile on the island where the city of Venice began.

The small peaceful island off the Venice tourist circuit is where the city began more than 1,500 years ago.

This community on a small Venetian island has taken to painting their houses in bright neon hues.

The oldest of Venice's plague quarantine stations, designed to keep the medieval city safe from disease.

Venice's "Island of the Mad."

Hanging within this medieval church are the bones of a beast allegedly slain by a fourth-century saint.

Venice's island of the dead.

This deconsecrated church has seen many uses, from a tobacco storehouse to a cinema.

In the past, Renaissance sex workers were encouraged to entice customers on this bridge.

The only museum with its curator—and her pets—buried inside.

According to tradition this is the oldest church in Venice, but its actual age is a mystery.

A new sculpture calls attention to climate change in the centuries-old city it threatens.

The marble facade hides a little-known medical museum with early surgical instruments and rare copies of canonical texts.

As can be expected from a centuries-old church built in a canal city, the undercroft of this house of worship is beautifully flooded.

A section of the long chain that blocked enemy ships from entering Constantinople.

Quite possibly the oldest love poem known to humankind.

The eclectic home of a leading Turkish architect is a gorgeous piece of eye candy.

One of the largest wooden constructions in Europe was meant to be a casino, but soon became an orphanage.

Over the centuries, this island paradise has done it all, from providing monks with ecclesiastical respite to sheltering an exiled Leon Trotsky.

This eatery re-creates dishes from the Ottoman Empire so you can dine like a sultan.

Climb a set of vertiginous stone steps to the top of this impressive ancient edifice.

The most metal church of all time was built in record time because of an international, pious pissing contest.