by Theodoros II
The next time you ’re backpacking through Europe , forget the Eiffel Tower and the Leaning Tower of Pisa . Instead , venture into the unnamed lands of Europe ’s quirky landmark and tourist destinations .
1. Medieval Crime Museum, Germany
Photo courtesy of Flickr usercraigemorsels
The charming gothic city of Rothenburg ob der Tauber , located in the Franconia region of Bavaria in Germany , has become a tourist hot spot . But one of its chief attractions is decidedlynotcharming : theMedieval Crime Museum , which is dedicate to the repugnance of the Dark Ages . It ’s full of creepy-crawly exhibits and instruments of torture , include theSchandmaske — a masque of shame made for public mortification and derision . Each mask is designed to fit its dupe ’s crime ( one mask on showing even has a gag form like a pig ’s hooter ) . There ’s also a torture chair for bakers who sold undersized loaf of cabbage and a spinning Catherine wheel that victims were strapped to during public execution .
2. Petrified Forest of Lesbos, Greece
Wikimedia Commons
Greece’sPetrified Forest of Lesboshas been declared a protected repository of nature . The protected zone get across an country of 150,000 Akka and include hundred of fossilized conifer trunks and fruiting trees . Volcanic materials blanket the forest more than 20 million years ago , which caused it to become petrified . Now , as the volcanic material erodes away , the beautiful colors and patterns of the stone tree diagram trunks are expose .
3. Lighthouses for Rent, Croatia
pic courtesy ofFlickr user m.prinke
Croatians have take the modern - day hostel and transmute it into a unique experience with theirrented lighthouses , which stretch along the Adriatic coast from Istria to Dubrovnik . For only $ 55 to $ 85 a day , visitors can spend the night in a private lighthouse on an isolated island . But the stop decidedly is n’t as glamourous as it might seem : Visitors report that the sheets are alter only once a week , and tourists want to get their own water and supplies if they need to void drinking the reservoir weewee .
4. Avanos Hair Museum, Turkey
Thirty years ago , one of Chez Galip ’s friends left town for good . Before get out , the woman left him a lock of pilus for him to remember her by . So the Turkish potter and artist created theAvanos Hair Museumunder his clayware shop in Cappadocia . Since then , most woman who visit the museum leave whorl of their hairsbreadth — label with their addresses — behind . The museum is satiate with more than 16,000 tomentum samples , which beautify every control surface but the flooring .
5. Dracula’s Castle, Transylvania
lamia devotee who find themselves in Transylvania might want to swing byBran Castle , which is commercialize as the home of Prince Vlad of Wallachia , aka Vlad the Impaler , the human race who inspired Bram Stoker’sDracula . settle in the settlement of Bran on the perimeter of Transylvania and Romania , the palace was the second - most expensive holding in the world and valued at $ 140 million , according to a 2007 Forbes article .
6. Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, Ukraine
At theChernobyl Nuclear Power Plantin Ukraine , make bold tourist who are n’t afraid of a fiddling radiotherapy can learn every detail of the Chernobyl atomic fortuity and its effect on those who lived and worked around the sphere . Visitors will see a atomic nuclear reactor , the ghost town of Pripyat , and the “ red forest”—where atomic radiation caused environ pine trees to call on a ruby orange . There is also the Chernobyl Museum in Kiev .
7. Museum of Broken Relationships, Croatia
Brokenships.com
Olinka Vištica and Dražen Grubišić first conceived the idea of theMuseum of Broken Relationshipswhen they combed through their collection of relic and giving they had exchanged during their kinship . They determine to exhibit them and need their friends to contribute their own collections . Over the years , they create a immense collection of items donated by divorced couples . Lingerie , toothbrushes , dress , wedding wearing apparel , and dental floss are among the items on show in the museum .
8. The Phallus Museum, Iceland
Photo by Flickr usermagic_bee
TheIcelandic Phallological Museumis located in Reykjavik and houses the largest collection of penises in the world . Retired instructor Sigurður Hjartarson founded the museum in 1997 . The museum is now feed by his son , Hjörtur Gísli Sigurðsson , who is — according to Slate — “ the world ’s only ancestral penis - museum hustler . ”
The exhibits show member preserve in drinking glass vessels or mounted on memorial tablet and include all 93 specie of autochthonous Icelandic mammalian . There are 280 specimens in all , let in member from heavyweight , walruses , seals , and a 95 - yr - old human conferrer who died in July 2011 . The museum also contains a magnanimous aggregation of target with priapic shapes , including a lampshade made from a bull scrotum .
According to the museum , “ Phallology is an ancient science which , until late years , has received very fiddling attention in Iceland , except as a borderline field of study in other academic subject field such as history , art , psychology , literature and other artistic fields like euphony and ballet . ”
