Staircase winds down the side of Telegraph Hill through gardens, wild parrots flying overhead.

This Los Angeles animation studio is keeping the wonder of stop motion puppetry alive.

Unlike other abandoned asylums this empty institution welcomes visitors, just don't go in the buildings.

The walkable ruins of an 19th century hotel, destroyed in a horse cremation gone wrong.

The abandoned zoo enclosures offer a perfect place to experience the other side of the bars.

The legendary building that needed ghostly approval before being built.

"Mock all and sundry things, but leave the saints alone."

One of the oldest used bookstores in the U.S. has been selling antiquarian treasures since 1825.

Madrid's romantically ornate crystal palace has been offering shelter to plants and art for over a century.

One of only two commuter aerial tramways in the United States.

Just your average Marie Antoinette–themed speakeasy in an abandoned 19th-century subway tunnel.

The one-stop shop for all of your superhero (or evil arch-nemesis) needs.

Stockholm's deepest subway station is also a stunning ecological wonder.

Pre-Nazi swastikas adorn the sculpted pachyderms flanking this brewhouse portal.

This unattributed sculpture in Amsterdam is hiding in plain sight.

A floating cat sanctuary on an Amsterdam canal.

An Amsterdam street lined with antique shops each one dedicated to a different obscure collection.

Step inside the first house designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí, considered to be one of the first Art Nouveau buildings.

This store decorated with Japanese and underground pop culture items has been the centre of Barcelona alternative fashion scenes for more than a decade.

Self-sufficient greenhouse floating on the Hudson River.

This crumbling Art Deco movie palace in Mexico City has been abandoned for two decades.

One of the last mosaic tile facades found in the city.

The story behind this beloved toy—named for Theodore Roosevelt and owned by his grandson—is more complicated than you might guess.

Decades before the scandal, this staircase on the river was a literal "water gate."