World's most impressive metro stations

Half kaleidoscope, half metro station, Kaohsiung, Taiwan's, Formosa Boulevard station features the world's largest glass artwork.

One of Naples' so-called Metro Art Stations, Toledo station was designed around themes of water and light. Enormous dome lights, bathing the platforms in haunting blue, red and yellow, make Munich's otherwise ordinary Westfriedhof station roar. Newly opened Fulton Transit Center train station in lower Manhattan isn't for creatures of the dark -- at least during daylight hours. Jellyfish chandeliers add to the water theme of the Khalid Bin Al Waleed station beneath Dubai's BurJuman shopping center. Olaias station is a welcome leftover from Lisbon's 1998 world expo, which celebrated 500 years of Portuguese inventions.  London Underground might be the world's oldest metro but Westminster has to be one of the most futuristic-looking stations anywhere. The austere design opened days before the new millennium.Epic murals by artist Mario Toral cover the walls of Santiago's Universidad de Chile station, depicting Chile's historic struggles.Stockholm's central station gets stranger the further you descend, until you reach the cave-like platform level, with its abstract floral designs. Like a reminder of the things whizzing around beneath your feet, Zbigniew Peter Pininski's design for Bockenheimer Warte in Frankfurt, Germany, suggests a subway car that went off the rails.Called "Little Fosters" after their ubiquitous architect-creator, Norman Foster, these station entrances sum up Bilbao, Spain's, fondness for up-to-the-minute style.It's hard to stand out in a city as beautiful as Paris. The beaded Palais Royal -- Musée du Louvre metro entrance design from 2000 doesn't try to be meek.Russia's subway stations are among the world's most impressive. The 2011 Admiralteyskaya addition to St. Petersburg's system blends classic and modern design. This 2005 underground stop in Warsaw, Poland, named after U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, won a metro design award -- possibly from visiting UFOs. Actually, all of Prague's stations, not just Staromestska deserve a place here for the unforgettable dimpled wall design, different for each stop and just on the fun side of good taste.Life might be grim in North Korea, but Pyongyang's metro stations aren't. Their opulence contrasts with the city's drab realities.