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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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Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
Queen’s Arcade
Before the arcade, the site belonged to Belfast's harp-playing doctor who taught blind children music and founded a hospital.
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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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Uayma, Mexico
Santo Domingo de Guzmán Church
Built from stones of dismantled Maya temples, this church took priests over 100 years to convince locals to enter.
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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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Magallanes and Chilean Antarctica, Chile
Torres del Paine National Park
British ranchers shipped prefab buildings to Patagonia's edge, where puma hunters were once paid per kill until 1980.
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Ioannina, Greece
Stoa Liampei
A covered arcade rebuilt in stone and iron after fire leveled half the city's shops in the 1800s now hosts modern day shops.
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West Coast Region, New Zealand
Brewster Hut
At 1,460 metres in New Zealand's Southern Alps, this hut has no heating and a water tank that runs dry when you need it most.
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Cabo Pulmo, Baja California Sur, Mexico
Cabo Pulmo EcoAdventures
This fishing village gave up fishing in 1995. Now it has the largest fish biomass recovery ever recorded in a marine reserve.
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Superior, Arizona, United States
Superior Climbing Shack
A former copper mining town reinvents itself one climbing route at a time, with 1,000 sport climbs replacing underground shafts.
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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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Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States
The Yale Theater
From livestock auctions to Art Deco revival: this Oklahoma City theater that refused to stay dark.
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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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Istanbul, Turkey
Egyptian Bazaar
Turkish wordplay turned this 1664 spice market into the 'Corn Bazaar'.
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Paris, France
Piscine de la Butte-aux-Cailles
A geothermal spring 580 meters below Paris feeds a year-round outdoor pool heated to 28°C.
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London, United Kingdom
Chelsea Embankment
How a river too putrid for Queen Victoria became one of London's most pristine waterfronts.
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Oamaru, New Zealand
Oamaru Opera House
The architect designed it in 1907, then sailed to Australia in 1911 and never returned to see it age.
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Alnwick, United Kingdom
Alnwick Gardens
Behind skull-marked gates, gardeners in hazmat suits tend belladonna and hemlock. Oh, and 20 to 30 visitors faint from the fumes every year.
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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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Shiraz, Iran
Nasir al-Mulk Mosque
This mosque's expensive gamble turns morning prayers into a daily light show.
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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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Guadalajara, Mexico
Biblioteca Iberoamericana Octavio Paz
A 16th-century Jesuit college turned an identity crisis into a storybook future.
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Chicago, Illinois, United States
The Bean
Critics called it "The Electric Kidney Bean." Chicago said no, just "Bean," and a $23 million nickname was born.
AWA visted here
Brussels, Belgium
De Brouckere Metro Station
Belgium's first underground route opened in 1969- as a tramway, not a metro.
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Barcelona, Spain
Barceloneta Beach
A man made beach built from imported sand for the 1992 Olympics.
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Struer, Denmark
Grisetå Odde Fyr
This Danish lighthouse guides ships through treacherous straits and graces cheese packages in German grocery stores.
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Ljubljana, Slovenia
Slovenian School Museum
Slovenia's oldest specialist museum once lived in a bar and a castle before finding its permanent home in 1938.
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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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