Places toniamonkey Wants to Go

142 ceramic steps become a mosaic once a year.

Originally a leper colony, the island is now an Armenian monastery that's home to an incredible manuscript library and eclectic museum.

The first botanical garden, a feather in the cap of the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

A unique form of erosion created an uncanny landscape of boulders perched atop slender columns of clay.

The ruins of an abbey believed to have been founded by Charlemagne in the 9th century.

In the world's oldest university is a stunning 17th century anatomical theater carved from spruce.

A detailed pachyderm supports Rome's smallest Egyptian obelisk.

A magnificent waterfall is also home to the remains of a Roman hydraulic engineering system.

A medieval fountain lined with 99 unique stone faces whose origins and meaning remain unknown.

A 1,000-year-old church holds the bones of the Christian martyrs who died hiding inside it.

This natural gas vent certainly earns its name as the smallest volcano in Italy.

The burial place of an obscure North African saint was turned into a macabre body preservation factory for the 17th-century Neapolitan elite.

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

The highest waterfall in Italy is only "turned on" five times a year.

This breathtaking monastery was established by Saint Benedict himself 1,500 years ago.

A cave in southern Italy adorned with thousand-year-old Biblical frescoes existed in obscurity until fairly recently.

This military mausoleum captures the solemn grandeur that most memorials only aspire to.

Nestled in the hills of Tuscany are gorgeous, multicolored hot springs.

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

Naturally preserved bodies are eerily staged throughout the crypt in varying poses.

Over 100 towers were built in Bologna during the Middle Ages, but only 22 survive.

A wunderkammer of curious objects and intriguing art nestled within a hub of ancient Roman sites.

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

This amazingly well-preserved villa just outside Pompeii boasts rare examples of ancient Roman paintings.