Places sophiew Wants to Go

A state-of-the-art medical facility from the Imperial era is now a derelict ruin.

This tiny little island has, as the name says, just enough room for its single house.

A quiet, gothic haven nestled between Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill and Point Breeze neighborhoods.

Connecticut's shot tower is near the end of its life.

This "thrice-cursed" island is allegedly home to Captain Kidd's lost treasure.

An artist's mausoleum with a haunting echo.

A stunning silver lining to global warming's gloomy cloud.

Thousands of years of crashing waves gave this mushroom-shaped rock its svelte figure.

Submerged ruins of a Neolithic coastal settlement, where houses, wells, graves and skeletons have been unearthed.

This family tattoo parlor has been inking religious pilgrims in the Middle East for 700 years.

That bass was as bad a fish as any angler ever knew.

Constant erosion has created a surreal landscape of bleached and preserved fallen trees.

Bad farming practices caused this unnatural natural wonder.

This 13-foot smiling peanut in Georgia helped Jimmy Carter win the 1976 presidential election.

A wealth of local folk art, antiques, and curios, without ever leaving your car.

The house that Southern rock built now stands as a monument to one of the genre's favorite families.

The statues commemorate the legendary mass killing of escaped circus monkeys.

These tombs were built into the side of a mountain so that ancient angels could reach the dead.

This vertical pinnacle in China was the inspiration for the floating mountains in the movie “Avatar.”

The Cambridge pub where Francis Crick announced that he and James Watson had discovered the DNA double-helix.

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

A sprawling collection of books and manuscripts about ancient Greece that would have put their famed libraries to shame.

150 or so scrounged-up lamps, chandeliers, and lanterns light up this alley in central Athens.

Poseidon? No one seems to know.