For Christmas my mom got a National Geographic book called Sacred Places of a Lifetime: 500 of the World's Most Peaceful and Powerful Destinations. The book is divided into ten somewhat vaguely defined sections: Sacred Landscapes, Megaliths & Mysteries, Cradles of Faith, Majestic Ruins, Daily Devotion, Shrines, The Pilgrim's Way, Ceremonies & Festivals, In Remembrance, and Retreats. Though I've been to some of the sites listed, I found some I hadn't heard of before that I feel I need to visit. If you take a look at the book, it might behoove you to keep a pen and paper handy to update your own list.
More important are the ones I've not seen yet. Several of these have been on my radar before, but some were new to me via this book. With the help of Sacred Destinations, a site I could spend many an hour on, here are short descriptions of the interesting places I found. These are organized vaguely geographically.
Canterbury Cathedral is the site of Thomas à Becket's martyrdom, and the church to which the pilgrims were traveling in the Canterbury Tales. One day I want to walk from Southwark Cathedral in London to Canterbury Cathedral.
Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire was destroyed during Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries. Theologically speaking, I'm not sure how sacred a place can be if it's been formally deconsecrated, but the ruins look beautiful (as do those of Fountains Abbey, also in Yorkshire, which didn't make the 500).
Lindisfarne or Holy Island is in the northeast of England. Like Iona, it has long been home to a monastery, and the Lindisfarne Gospels were produced there.
Iona
is an island off the west coast of Scotland long held sacred and the
site of a monastery since the early Middle Ages. The Book of Kells may
have been produced, in full or in part, on Iona.
The Calanais (anglicized Callanish) stones have stood on the Isle of Lewis, off Scotland, for nearly 5000 years.
Chartres Cathedral is one of the premier cathedrals in France, and that's saying something. Its stained glass windows are especially impressive. Apparently. Ask my mom, she's been there a few times.
Mont-St-Michel is another island monastery, though, as at Lindisfarne, you can walk to it during low tide.
Heloise and Abelard, Chopin, Delacroix, Isadora Duncan, and Oscar Wilde are among those buried at Père Lachaise.
The London to Canterbury pilgrimage can be walked in about a week, but to complete the Camino de Santiago de Compostela takes at least a month. There are multiple routes to the cathedral in Compostela, one coming all the way from Rome, but the most well-known running from France across northern Spain. To achieve your certificate, you must walk at least the last 100 kilometers (60 miles)--and declare that there was a spiritual reason for your journey.
The abbey in San Galgano, Italy, is ruined only in that the roof is missing. Otherwise the 13th-century building is almost completely intact.
The 6th-century Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna is filled with Byzantine mosaics.
Aachen Cathedral was first begun by Charlemagne, who's now buried there. As the cathedral of subsequent Holy Roman Emperors, it is richly decorated and great in historic significance.
What the book calls "Wittenberg Church" is more precisely the Castle Church (Schlosskirche) there, as opposed to the City Church (Stadtkirche). It was to the Schlosskirche's doors that Martin Luther nailed his theses in 1517, and now he and his friends Philip Melanchthon, and Frederick the Wise are buried there.
Not far from Kraków is the monastery of Jasna Góra in Częstochowa, which holds a miraculous Black Madonna. I grew up hearing stories of my dad driving tour groups to see a replica of the icon at the Our Lady of Częstochowa Shrine in Pennsylvania, so I'd like to see the real one.
There are several stave churches in Norway; the book lists those at Lom and Borgund, while the best known is probably that at Urnes. These wooden churches date from Christianity's introduction into Norway in the early Middle Ages.
Kizhi, in Karelian Russia, is home to wooden Orthodox buildings situated in the midst of Lake Onega. You can get to the pogost by helicopter, boat, or hydrofoil.
The Upper Svaneti region in Georgia has several medieval villages, some of which feature peculiar tower-houses. Presumably there are churches amongst the buildings; to be honest, I can't now remember if the book was specific about any particular site.
The Anatolian rock churches of Göreme, Turkey, are notable for their Byzantine frescoes. The paintings in the so-called Dark Church are especially vivid due to the paucity of natural light that enters the chuch.
It's a church! It's a mosque! Varangian vandals carved runes in its stone! (It's the Hagia Sophia.)
No one is sure what it was for, and the architecture is not typical for the area, so it's no surprise that Indiana Jones found the Holy Grail at the Treasury in Petra.
The cemeteries of New Orleans are famed for both their architecture and their otherworldly atmosphere. The oldest dates from 1789. The Internet seems to suggest that due to the neighborhoods in which they're located, not all of the cemeteries are safe for tourists to visit.
Haida Gwaii, off the coast of British Columbia, is the home of the Haida tribe. Formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands, the area features natural beauty and native culture.
