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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 hereBrown
Wood, brick, and a variety of construction materials often employ brown as a base color. This collection showcases some of the best browns around.
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.
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New York, New York, United States
Domino Sugar Refinery
At its peak, this factory refined 98% of all sugar consumed in the United States.
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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.
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Tallinn, Estonia
Restoran Olde Hansa
This Tallinn restaurant bans potatoes, tomatoes, and chocolate—only ingredients available before 1492 make the cut.
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Budapest, Hungary
Buda Castle Funicular
Europe's second funicular: 1.5 million riders a year, then gone for 42 years.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Savannah, Georgia, United States
Lucas Theatre for the Arts
Savannah's Lucas Theatre reunited with its Wurlitzer organ after a 50-year separation.
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London, United Kingdom
Royal College of Music
The future King Edward VII opened a music college in 1883 where talent mattered more than birthright.
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Weymouth, Massachusetts, United States
Jefferson School
After designing 140 churches, architect Shepard S. Woodcock finally built something you could skip on Sundays.
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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.
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Coimbra, Portugal
Joanina Library, University of Coimbra
Students once jailed beneath for sleeping in class- now bats patrol above, protecting the book stacks.
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Rapallo, Italy
Excelsior Palace Hotel
Italy's first casino hotel secretly hosted three world-altering treaties between champagne service and celebrity sightings.
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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.
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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.
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Tabriz, Iran
Imam Khomeini Mosalla
Tabriz's forever-unfinished prayer hall has been accused of undermining its ancient neighbor.
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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."
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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.
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Skopje, North Macedonia
Matka Exhibition Center
Handle 80-year-old dials in a control room frozen in time when the new plant opened next door.
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Budapest, Hungary
St. Stephens Hall
Destroyed in WWII, Budapest's St. Stephen's Hall lay dormant for 76 years before its 600-piece Zsolnay fireplace rose again.
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Freeport, Maine, United States
Desert of Maine
A dinner-plate-sized patch of sand grew to swallow forty acres, buildings, and all.
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Leknes, Norway
Haukland Beach Cafe
A beachside café in the Arctic Circle where the first 20 minutes of parking are free- just enough time to test the 9°C water.
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Norman, Oklahoma, United States
Bizzell Memorial Library
Library stacks holding books but also important history.
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Creemore, Ontario, Canada
Creemore Springs Brewery
Mauled by a tiger during the Depression, sold a brewery for $25 million at 74.
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Rajasthan, India
Chand Baori
Built in the 8th century, this stepwell drops 13 stories and stays five degrees cooler at the bottom than the surface.
AWA visted here
Echternach, Luxembourg
Abbey of Echternach
Each Whit Tuesday, Echternach revives its centuries-old dancing procession: a handkerchief-linked, brass-band swirl of faith and footwork that even Saint Willibrord would jump back in line for.
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Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Boston Public Library
How a French ventriloquist sparked the the idea for the first official library in the USA.
AWA visted here
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Brooklyn, New York, United States
Metropolitan Fish Market
Old-school. Cash-only. Preferably quarters.
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Haworth, United Kingdom
Keighley & Worth Valley Railway (KWVR)
This picture-perfect railway has been brought back to life!
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Portland, Oregon, United States
Oaks Park Roller Skating Rink
Roller skating to the sound of a live pipe organ? Only in Portland.
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