History

A classical stone statue in an arched garden niche with a small fountain, framed by clipped box hedges in a formal garden.

Museum Van Loon: Step Inside a Lived-In Amsterdam Canal House

Museum Van Loon is a grand 1670s canal house on the Keizersgracht, lived in by the aristocratic Van Loon family and now…

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A quiet walled garden with an old brick wall, climbing greenery and a gate opening onto a green lawn.

Amsterdam

The Begijnhof: Amsterdam’s Hidden Medieval Courtyard Where the City Falls Silent

The Begijnhof is a walled medieval courtyard of houses and gardens hidden in the middle of Amsterdam, built for a lay sisterhood…

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An ornate gilded Baroque altar with a painted altarpiece and a crystal chandelier in a small church interior

Amsterdam

Our Lord in the Attic: Amsterdam’s Secret Church Hidden in a Canal House

Our Lord in the Attic (Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder) is a complete 17th-century Catholic church built in secret across the top…

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Barcelona

Refugi 307: Walk Through a Real Civil War Bomb Shelter Dug Into Montjuïc

Refugi 307 is one of the best-preserved of the roughly 1,400 air-raid shelters that Barcelona's residents dug by hand during the Spanish…

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A long, dimly lit ancient brick-vaulted underground passage receding into darkness, evoking the buried lower layers beneath the Basilica di San Clemente in Rome.

Rome

Basilica di San Clemente: Three Layers of Rome Under One Church

The Basilica di San Clemente is a church stacked on a church stacked on a Roman street: a glowing 12th-century basilica up…

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Berlin

Böhmisches Dorf Rixdorf: A 1730s Bohemian Village Hidden in Neukölln

Böhmisches Dorf is a Bohemian village founded in 1737 around Richardplatz in Berlin's Neukölln, its cobblestone lanes and cottages surviving almost intact…

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Ancient Roman marble statues of gods and figures dramatically lit against a dark museum backdrop, evoking the classical sculpture at Centrale Montemartini.

Rome

Centrale Montemartini: Ancient Gods Among the Machines

Centrale Montemartini is Rome's first power station, now a Capitoline Museums annexe where hundreds of ancient marble statues are displayed against giant…

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Berlin

Teufelsberg: Berlin’s Cold War Spy Station Turned Street-Art Cathedral

Teufelsberg is a hill built from WWII rubble in Berlin's Grunewald forest, topped by an abandoned Cold War listening station whose white…

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Vienna

The Third Man Tour: Down Into Vienna’s Cholera-Era Sewers, Straight Off the Screen

The Third Man Tour takes you down a spiral staircase into Vienna's actual 1830s "cholera sewers" to walk the brick tunnels where…

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Vienna

Kirche am Steinhof: Otto Wagner’s Gilded Art Nouveau Church on a Hill Above Vienna

The Kirche am Steinhof is Otto Wagner's 1907 Art Nouveau church, a gold-domed total artwork crowning a former psychiatric hospital hill on…

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