Places sarahltait Wants to Go

This 16th-century monastery has been turned into a surrealist architecture compound.

Five candy-colored villages on the Italian Riviera.

A fairy tale castle in modern Rome.

The largest and most famous wax anatomical collection anywhere in the world.

An Italian hillside ghost town.

Architectural monsters are devouring this palace's every door and window.

An ossuary built in 1210 to collect bones from the Ospedale Maggiore of Milan.

The engineering wonder and pleasure dome of a much-maligned emperor still holds undiscovered secrets.

Hidden in an Italian forest is a completely homemade amusement park that has taken a lifetime to create.

The last moments of the ill-fated Pompeiians, frozen forever in plaster.

The glowing blue Nymphaeum of Emperor Tiberius.

Venice's "Island of the Mad."

The final resting place of the poets Shelley and Keats.

A large grotto built in the 16th century amidst Florence's famous Boboli gardens.

The skull of the patron saint of lovers lies in the Basilica di Santa Maria in Cosmedin—maybe.

The oldest operating pharmacy in the world features 800-year-old recipes.

2300-year-old Roman road connecting the empire.

The doodles of a genius line the walls of a secret room under the Medici Chapel, where they were hidden for nearly 500 years.

Thousands of well-dressed mummies below a monastery.

According to the local folklore, the myriad colors of this lake are the result of a lovelorn wizard's blunder.

The only "Egyptian" pyramid in Europe and the legendary tomb of Remus.

Stalactites and stalagmites in a beautifully lit cave.

Pompeii's less famous neighbor is still revealing her secrets.

The underground sanctuary of a mysterious ancient cult.