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[Ryan Martis]

8. Crac des Chevaliers, Syria

[Ryan Martis]

Described by TE Lawrence as the 'finest castle in the world', this hilltop Crusader fortress might be 800 years old but, like a good botox treatment, stands tight and taut against the ravages of time. It's the classic blueprint of a medieval castle, its thick outer walls separated from the inner structure by a moat dug out of the rock. Inside, it's a minitown, complete with a chapel, baths, a great hall and a Gothic loggia. The most visible sign of aging is the vegetation that grows from its walls; nothing a good shave wouldn't fix.

[Ryan Martis]

9. Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Brazil



Designed by Oscar Niemeyer, the celebrated architect behind the creation of the Brazilian capital, Brasília, the Museu Oscar Niemeyer in Curitiba will test your view of aesthetics. Like all great buildings - and probably more so - the art museum's appearance has an element of love-it-or-hate-it, with its main gallery shaped like a reflective glass eye, balancing atop a yellow support, and approached on curving ramps above a pool of water. Once inside the building commonly called the 'Eye Museum', you'll see that every aspect of the museum's design seems to marry beauty with whimsy.

[Ryan Martis]

10. Hagia Sophia, Turkey

[Ryan Martis]

Aya Sofya (or Hagia Sophia) is the great architectural landmark at the heart of Istanbul, with its four minarets poised like moon-bound rockets. Constructed in the 6th century AD as an Orthodox church, it later became a mosque and, since 1935, a museum. The enormous structure was built in just five years, and its musk walls are topped by an imposing dome, 101-feet wide and 183-feet high. The dome's base is ringed by windows, so that from within the structure, the dome seems almost to hover ethereally above the building.