Opened in 1973 as the first bridge to span the Bosphorus, the 15 July Martyrs Bridge connects the European and Asian shores of Istanbul and stands as a symbol of the city that famously straddles two continents. Stretching more than a kilometre between Ortakoy on the European side and Beylerbeyi on the Asian, the elegant suspension bridge was designed by British engineers and built in just over three years, its completion timed to the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Republic. .....

Perched on the 94th floor of the tower at 875 North Michigan Avenue, the observation deck branded today as 360 CHICAGO ranks among the highest public viewpoints in the city. The skyscraper opened in 1969 as the John Hancock Center, and an observatory has occupied its upper floors almost from the beginning, carrying sightseers roughly 1,000 feet skyward in about 39 seconds aboard some of the fastest elevators in the country. A multi-million-dollar renovation in 2014 retired the old name, introduc.....

Devoted to the playful art of the optical illusion, the 3D TrickArt Museum in central Berlin invites visitors to become part of the artwork, posing within elaborately painted scenes that appear startlingly three-dimensional when viewed and photographed from the right angle. The museum belongs to a genre of attraction that has grown popular in cities around the world, in which large murals and installations are created using the techniques of forced perspective and trompe-l'oeil so that a flat p.....

Few streets carry the symbolic weight that Fifth Avenue does in New York. Laid out as the Manhattan grid took shape in the early 1800s and generally dated to 1824, when its lower section reached Washington Square, the avenue first filled with the mansions of Gilded Age families before commerce gradually pushed the wealthy further uptown. What remained was a corridor that doubles as a roll-call of the city's landmarks and a global byword for luxury retail. Walking north, the route passes the Fla.....

Tucked into the bustle of San Francisco's Pier 39 waterfront, the 7D Experience is a compact, high-energy interactive ride that fuses the screen-based action of a video game with the physical motion of a theme-park attraction. Part of a small American chain of such rides, the venue opened on the pier in the mid-2010s and quickly became a favourite quick stop for families and groups looking for a punchy diversion between the sea-lion docks, restaurants and shopping along the bay. The format is s.....

Instantly recognisable for the giant X-shaped braces running up its sides, the 100-storey tower at 875 North Michigan Avenue has anchored the Chicago skyline since 1969. It was conceived as the John Hancock Center, financed by the insurance company whose name it carried for half a century, and designed by architect Bruce Graham with structural engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Their exterior braced-tube system let the building rise without a forest of interior columns .....

Set on the second floor of a building at 420 West 14th Street in the Meatpacking District, the 9/11 Museum Workshop is a deliberately small and personal counterpoint to the larger memorial downtown. It was founded by Gary Marlon Suson, who served as the official photographer for the Fire Department of New York during the nine-month recovery effort at Ground Zero, and it opened to the public in September 2005. Rather than recounting the attacks themselves, the exhibit concentrates on the months o.....

Hands-on and unashamedly fun, ABBA The Museum on the Stockholm island of Djurgarden tells the story of the Swedish quartet whose music became a global phenomenon after their 1974 Eurovision win, and has drawn crowds of fans and curious visitors since it opened in 2013. The museum was built around the idea that visitors should take part rather than merely look, so alongside the cases of original costumes, gold records and instruments there are interactive stations where guests can sing with the .....

Perched on one of the highest hills overlooking Florence, the basilica of San Miniato al Monte is one of the finest examples of Tuscan Romanesque architecture in Italy and one of the most beautiful churches in the city. Begun in 1013, it was built on the spot where, according to tradition, the early Christian martyr Saint Miniato was buried after his execution in the third century. The facade is the building most famous feature, a precise composition in white Carrara marble and green serpentine.....

Immortalised on the cover of one of the most famous albums in popular music, the zebra crossing on Abbey Road in the St John's Wood area of north-west London has become an unlikely place of pilgrimage for fans from across the world. The photograph that made it famous was taken in August 1969 and shows the four members of the Beatles striding across the road in single file, a deceptively simple image that became the sleeve of the album that took the street's name. Ever since, visitors have come t.....