mrudzins's User Profile - Atlas Obscura
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Italy

Montecristo

The forbidden island of the Tuscan Archipelago may still contain buried treasure.
Rome, Italy

Passetto di Borgo

The Pope’s secret escape route.
Belpasso, Italy

Mount Etna

The world's most active stratovolcano is almost always erupting.
San Gimignano, Italy

The Museum of Medieval Torture

Medieval torture techniques with a modern conscience.
Rome, Italy

Basilica di San Clemente

A Nesting Doll of Churches.
Florence, Italy

Michelangelo's Hidden Drawings

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

Papal Hearts at Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio a Trevi

This former Roman Catholic Church still contains the embalmed hearts and organs of 22 popes.
Civita, Italy

Civita di Bagnoregio

This quaint Italian town keeps losing ground as the sides of its plateau slowly erode.
Verona, Italy

Juliet's Balcony

Pilgrimage site for star-crossed lovers.
Naples, Italy

Gabinetto Segreto

The once forbidden "secret cabinet" of erotic art from excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Rome, Italy

The Mouth of Truth

The yawning maw of this pagan visage is said to bite off the hands of liars.
Venice, Italy

The Flooded Crypt of San Zaccaria

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

San Servolo Insane Asylum Museum

Venice's "Island of the Mad."
Rome, Italy

The Dome Illusion

A master of trompe-l'oeil creates a stunning, tourist-fooling dome out of a flat ceiling.
Venice, Italy

The Mad Colored Houses of Burano

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

Libreria Acqua Alta

This Venice bookstore has resigned itself to constant flooding by keeping its books in bathtubs and boats.
Sanlúcar la Mayor, Spain

Solar Power Tower

Spain's stunning solar energy plant.
Seville, Spain

Tomb of Christopher Columbus

The final resting place of the great navigator, or maybe his brother.
Mexico

Undersea Brine Lake

A lake at the bottom of the ocean.
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

La Rotonda del Mar

A Lovecraftian altar of nightmarish bronze chairs sits ominously on a boardwalk in Puerto Vallarta.
Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

The Arch of Cabo San Lucas

A graceful natural rock formation stands astride the point where the Gulf of California meets the Pacific Ocean.
Mikonos, Greece

Terrace of the Lions

Replicas of Apollo's leonine stone guard cats still line a sacred row in Greece.
Mikonos, Greece

The Temple of Dionysos

Giant marble phalluses on the sacred island of antiquity.
Heraklion, Greece

Phaistos Disc

This famous archeological mystery may be an ancient example of movable type.