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Gordes, France
Eglise Saint-Firmin
The bell tower of this Provençal church started out as a medieval watchtower, with the village prison at its foot
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Blue has been an important color since ancient times. Often associated with peace and harmony, explore our collection for calm vibes.
Montevideo, Uruguay
Estadio Centenario
Estadio Centenario hosted the first ever World Cup match in 1930, and will host an honorary match in the 2030 tournament.
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Wittenberg, Wisconsin, United States
Fireworks Country Store
Where Reverend Homme's 1879 orphanage town now peddles pyrotechnic glory from a big blue barn.
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Brighton and Hove, United Kingdom
Brighton and Hove
Hove's 459 beach huts come with strict paint codes, a residents-only policy, and a three-year no-sell clause.
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Uyuni, Bolivia
Teatro Municipal Luisa Molina
In a railway town where physics defies cooking, Uyuni's theater stands maintained: a cultural anchor in Bolivia's salt flat gateway.
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Chamonix, France
Cafe Alpin Coffee Truck
A postwar Italian delivery trike now serves espresso at the base of the world's highest vertical ascent cable car.
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Falcon Heights, Minnesota, United States
Minnesota State Fairgrounds
Teddy Roosevelt's 'big stick' speech was delivered on land that had been a poor farm until 1885: days later, he became president.
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Lake Tekapo, New Zealand
Irishman Creek Station Gate House
A sheep farmer who invented an excavator to build a dam to power a workshop that eventually revolutionized boating.
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London, United Kingdom
Ruislip Tube Station
Ruislip's 1904 station once loaded cattle and entire automobiles onto trains. Now it ferries half a million commuters yearly.
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Santa Monica, California, United States
Lifeguard Tower 26
The original Muscle Beach was in Santa Monica, not Venice, which didn't officially adopt the name until 1987 to honor its predecessor.
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Eivissa, Spain
Dalt Vila Historic Quarter
About 400 residents live inside Dalt Vila's 16th-century fortress walls, originally built to repel Ottoman pirates, now home to pastel facades and quirky window displays.
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Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Queen Victoria Building
Sydney's 1898 'marketplace' was built during a recession to create jobs, but the council never intended it to sell produce.
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Shiraz, Iran
Tomb of Saadi
A 13th-century Persian poet's verse about shared humanity now greets visitors at the UN, written after 30 years in teahouses.
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Lago Maggiore, Italy
Isola Bella
It took the Borromeo family 318 years and thousands of tons of imported soil to transform a fishing rock into a floating palace.
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Seville, Spain
Populart
Seville's Populart rescues 400-year-old tiles from doomed buildings and sells them for less than the tourist stuff.
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Romsey, United Kingdom
Goodies Fish & Chip Shop
One of 10,000 survivors from an era when Britain had 35,000 fish and chip shops: each one a neighborhood institution.
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San Sebastián de La Gomera, Spain
San Sebastian de la Gomera
The last European soil Columbus touched wasn't in Spain—it was this volcanic island where locals now play beach football.
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Ribeirão da Ilha, Brazil
Ribeirão da Ilha
Brazil's oyster capital speaks an 18th-century Azorean dialect, preserved by accident when immigration simply stopped in 1756.
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Tabriz, Iran
Haidarzadeh House
A 19th-century mansion with no documented birth date now serves as Tabriz's official tourism information center.
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Baku, Azerbaijan
National Museum of History of Azerbaijan
Nine kilograms of gold decorate this hall's ceiling, built by an oil baron who started as a shoemaker's son.
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Baku, Azerbaijan
Taza Pir Mosque
Built over nine years with Tsarist oversight, this 1914 mosque operated for three years before becoming a cinema and barn.
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Santa Nella, California, United States
Pea Soup Andersen’s
A restaurant once named for the novelty of electricity now survives on a century-old soup recipe and California's largest windmill.
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Odesa, Ukraine
Seventh-Kilometer Market
Odesa's Seventh-Kilometer Market is so vast its name is painted on rooftops—visible from space and airplane windows alike.
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Manerba del Garda, Italy
Pontile di San Sivino
Beneath the swimmers at San Sivino lies an entire Bronze Age village, submerged for over 3,000 years.
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Broadstairs, United Kingdom
Viking Bay Beach
A beach renamed in 1949 for 53 Danes, a replica longship, and a very good publicity stunt.
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Kazan, Russia
Kul Sharif Mosque
Kazan's Kul Sharif Mosque was destroyed in 1552 and rebuilt 450 years later, opening in 2005 for the city's millennium.
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Penzance, United Kingdom
The Old Lifeboat House
Cornwall's first lifeboat station moved four times before 1884, when a £1,000 donation built a granite home for just £575.
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Penzance, United Kingdom
Jubilee Pool
One councillor called it "the biggest white elephant Penzance has ever had." He was spectacularly wrong.
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Tresigallo, Italy
SOGNI Building
A restoration changed one letter on this 1930s fascist bathhouse, from BAGNI to SOGNI, accidentally turning baths into dreams.
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Kazan, Russia
Galiev Mosque
Forced into exile in 1552, Kazan's Tatars built their own 'Atlantis': a quarter of mosques and merchant mansions by Lake Kaban.
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Portsmouth, United Kingdom
Portsmouth Kite Festival
A Chinese general measured enemy walls with kites in 200 B.C. Now international teams perform synchronized routines over the Solent.
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Borgholm, Sweden
Kallbadhuset Borgholm
Borgholm's cold-water bathhouse has been destroyed twice, rebuilt three times, and refuses to stay dead.
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Marseille, France
Pavillon de la Girafe
A diplomatic giraffe walked 550 miles across France in 1827, sparking 'giraffomania' that drew 600,000 visitors.
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Cape Town, South Africa
Muizenberg Beach Huts
Muizenberg's bathing boxes started as Victorian modesty machines on wheels, then lost their wheels when mixed bathing became legal in 1901.
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Marbella, Spain
Marbella
A breakdown in a 900-person fishing village: how Prince Alfonso de Hohenlohe's faulty Rolls-Royce accidentally created Marbella.
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