Places WanderlustDiaries Wants to Go

This castle ruin in the middle of nowhere is a gem for wildlife enthusiasts.

One of the world's few mounted blue whales, its jaws are hinged open allowing visitors to descend into a lounge.

Oslo's historic toboggan run has been letting thrill seekers slide from train stop to train stop for over a century.

Tens of thousands of tiny bottles stuffed with various items.

One thousand trees were planted in Norway to be used to print books a century from now.

An artist's mausoleum with a haunting echo.

This equestrian statue of Constantine the Great has been the subject of criticism for centuries.

A hidden workshop for creating and restoring Papal mosaic masterpieces.

The Vatican's secret porn-festooned bathroom was painted in erotic murals by one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance.

If you want to talk to the Pope you will have to stare down this surreal vision of Jesus rising from a nuclear hell.

Hidden beneath the famous St. Peter's Basilica is a veritable city of the dead that may hold the remains of St. Peter himself.

A stone marker and sculpture in the city of Riga stake a claim for the very first community Christmas tree.

A preserved oak tree about 3,500 years old found in Riga, Latvia.

Latvia's symbolic mountain-shaped national library is home to millions of cultural tomes.

Once a year, local students "clean" this statue with a champagne shower.

The enormous isokinetic structure hangs within a science center in Estonia.

Troublesome students were detained in this tiny graffiti-covered university jail.

First point in the Struve Geodetic Arc, a 19th century undertaking to measure the Earth's size and shape.

Historic slum of Tartu.

A historic scientific breakthrough that crosses nine borders.

The secret cells in the basement of the KGB's Estonian "Grey House" have been preserved as a grim Cold War museum.

The labyrinthine home of the National Archives of Estonia is an experimental blend of architecture, art, and history.

This 16th-century cemetery became a recreational park during the Soviet occupation—today it's a little bit of both.

Relics from an era long gone, sit idle outside this Estonian museum.