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Pilone, Italy
Torre San Leonardo
This 16th-century watchtower once warned of pirate raids with smoke and fire signals. Now it guards a nature reserve full of birds.
From the CommunityBrown
Wood, brick, and a variety of construction materials often employ brown as a base color. This collection showcases some of the best browns around.
Tabriz, Iran
Constitution House
A merchant's home became revolution headquarters: printing presses ran in the parlor, plotting Iran's first constitution.
From the Community
Tabriz, Iran
Pottery Museum
Tabriz's Pottery Museum survived earthquakes that destroyed entire cities—now it's Iran's only live pottery workshop.
From the Community
Harrogate, United Kingdom
Harrogate Tap
The only part of an 1862 station that survived demolition now causes passengers to miss their trains on purpose.
From the Community
Aosta, Italy
Mercato Halles Aosta Valley
Aosta's Tuesday market has peddled Fontina and zero-kilometer honey beneath Alpine peaks for generations.
From the Community
Dallas, Texas, United States
Southern Methodist University
SMU's Dallas Hall was so large when it opened in 1915 that it housed the entire university—plus a hamburger grill and a mummy.
From the Community
Ogland, Kazakhstan
Beket Ata Underground Mosque
This 18th-century underground mosque carved into desert rock may have doubled as an astronomical observatory.
From the Community
Tabriz, Iran
Qajar Museum
This diplomat's mansion nearly became a school parking lot before a 13-year rescue transformed it into Tabriz's Qajar Museum.
From the Community
Venezia, Italy
Palazzo Tetta
At the fork of three canals, this 17th-century palace is surrounded by water on three sides. A rarity even in Venice!
From the Community
Chicago, Illinois, United States
St. Ignatius College Prep
One of five Chicago buildings to survive the Great Fire of 1871, this school conducted the first X-ray demonstration in the city.
AWA visted here
Monterey, California, United States
Monterey Canning Co
At its peak, Cannery Row processed 250,000 tons of sardines a year. Then the fish vanished - and only one marine biologist knew why.
From the Community
Sierra Madre, California, United States
Sierra Madre Playhouse
This 1910 furniture shop became a 1,200-seat movie palace, survived a projector fire, screened Bergman films, and doubled as 1939 Berkeley in Oppenheimer.
From the Community
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Chamrousse, France
Lacs Robert
This alpine hut equips beginners to dive beneath two meters of ice. Teddy bear fleece pyjamas included in the rental.
From the Community
Vienna, Austria
Vienna Clock Museum
An obsessive schoolteacher stashed 10,000 clocks in a sanatorium. Now it's Vienna's first clock museum.
AWA visted here
Wengen, Switzerland
Hotel Bellevue des Alpes
A family-run hotel since 1840, accessible only by train, with a front-row view of the "murder wall" that's claimed 64 lives.
AWA visted here
Tehran, Iran
National Garden Gate
Tehran's pre-Azadi icon: a gate to a garden that barely existed, where a bugler once announced dawn and dusk to the city.
From the Community
New York, New York, United States
Domino Sugar Refinery
At its peak, this factory refined 98% of all sugar consumed in the United States.
From the Community
Gressoney-Saint-Jean, Italy
Pasticceria Gran Bar Follis Dario
A medieval Germanic dialect survives in an Italian valley, eight centuries after the migration over the Alps.
From the Community
Tallinn, Estonia
Restoran Olde Hansa
This Tallinn restaurant bans potatoes, tomatoes, and chocolate—only ingredients available before 1492 make the cut.
From the Community
Budapest, Hungary
Buda Castle Funicular
Europe's second funicular: 1.5 million riders a year, then gone for 42 years.
From the Community
Kalabaka, Greece
Meteora
For centuries, monks said if a woman tried to climb, the rope would break. In 1921, a queen proved them wrong from a sack.
From the Community
Florence, Italy
Piazzale Michelangelo
Nine pairs of oxen hauled a bronze David up Florence's hills in the 1800s, and the museum it was meant for never opened.
From the Community
Boulder City, Nevada, United States
Hoover Dam
A dam so important it needed its own city.
AWA visted here
Basel, Switzerland
Basel Zoo Antelope House
A neoclassical monument to animals that never arrived.
From the Community
Savannah, Georgia, United States
Lucas Theatre for the Arts
Savannah's Lucas Theatre reunited with its Wurlitzer organ after a 50-year separation.
From the Community
London, United Kingdom
Royal College of Music
The future King Edward VII opened a music college in 1883 where talent mattered more than birthright.
From the Community
Weymouth, Massachusetts, United States
Jefferson School
After designing 140 churches, architect Shepard S. Woodcock finally built something you could skip on Sundays.
From the Community
Stockholm, Sweden
Stockholm Palace
Stockholm's Royal Guards rotate in from across Sweden for week-long shifts, and once doubled as the city's firefighters.
From the Community
Coimbra, Portugal
Joanina Library, University of Coimbra
Students once jailed beneath for sleeping in class- now bats patrol above, protecting the book stacks.
From the Community
Rapallo, Italy
Excelsior Palace Hotel
Italy's first casino hotel secretly hosted three world-altering treaties between champagne service and celebrity sightings.
From the Community
Tabriz, Iran
Sound & Music Museum
Forty years of collecting led to Iran's first sound museum, where fruit-core instruments share space with oil-powered radios.
From the Community
Tynemouth, United Kingdom
Tynemouth Volunteer Life Brigrade Museum
The world's first volunteer coastal rescue squad was born from tragedy and still answers emergency calls today.
From the Community
Tabriz, Iran
Imam Khomeini Mosalla
Tabriz's forever-unfinished prayer hall has been accused of undermining its ancient neighbor.
From the Community
Belgrade, Serbia
Zeleni Venac Market
Belgrade built Zeleni Venac in 1926 to banish illegal ox-wagon vendors and accidentally created the "Queen of the markets."
From the Community
Nancy, France
Grand Nancy Métropole Meurthe-et-Moselle
Built in 1908 by refugees from German-annexed Alsace, Nancy's Chamber of Commerce married art with industry as cultural resistance.
From the Community