PalenQ

What are some of the most unusual unorthodox or plain weird places you've been to in Europe?

One of my favorites is Eltham Palace in suburban London - of which the official site says illusrates "1930s Art Deco decadence. Built around the remains of an authnetically old medieval palace - Eltham Palace that was the childhood home of a young King Henry VIII no less the wealthy Courtauld Family bought the property and in the 1930s built new Art Deco edifices attached to a few remaining original parts.

Stephan Courtault who with his wife redid Eltham Palace dude was a war hero and adventurer - especially a mountaineer, climbing Mt Blanc - lots of relics of his advturing days are on display but it is the ornate lavish aspect that stuns visitors.

Folks must take off their street shoes at the entrance and put on special slippers to protect the fancy inlaid lfoors.

So for something way different check out weird Eltham Palace in Eltham, London, a suburb reached by Overground train from various London stations.

https://www.google.com/search?q=elth...=1600&bih=1049

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/d...e-and-gardens/

WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR 'NOT SO USUAL' PLACES YOU'VE ENJOYED?

Cowboy1968

I would not say it is an "enjoyable" sight, but it is pretty weird - in Berlin:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerb...ngsk%C3%B6rper

ALadyInLondon

I always think the Atomium in Brussels is a weird attraction.

nfldbeothuk

I thought the "Gold and Silver of Zadar" was strange, but that may be my Protestant sensibility, as it is a popular attraction. The dozens of gold-encased skeletal hands just looked strange to me, even if they belonged to saints.
However, my vote for "just plain weird" goes to the Flakturm in Esterhazy park in Vienna. It's one of six flak towers still standing in the city, supposedly because they were too hard to remove. They are huge, concrete towers, as they were built for civilian shelters as well as anti-aircraft guns. Today (at least, when I saw it in 2009), it adjoins a children's playground, contains an aquarium, has become a rock-climbing wall, and is surmounted by a modern art installation which has this phrase written across the top in German and English: Smashed to pieces in the still of the night.
Like the man said, just plain weird.
Here's a link:
http://unlike.net/vienna/escapism/haus-des-meeres

tuscanlifeedit

Dennis Severs House, London. Weird and expensive. I won't say that I exactly enjoyed it, but I won't forget.

http://www.dennissevershouse.co.uk/

They insist you are silent inside, to hear the sound effects.

worldinabag

The Capuchin Crypt in Rome. Bones of Capuchin monks displayed in intricate patterns and even as light fittings - http://theoriens.com/the-crypts-of-c...with-the-bones. A plaque in the chapel reads "What you are now, we used to be. What we are now, you will be."

mr_go

Similar toworlinabag's answer, but...the church in the sleepy village of Vodnjan on the Istrian peninsula of Croatia has a collection of mummified corpses dating back hundreds of years. Most of the are dressed to the nines in period finery. Even the Patriarch of Constantinople, who died in 350 or so.

As we stood there gawking at them, all I could think was "who thought this would be a good idea?"

More than just a little creepy.

Kristinelaine

Near Kutna Hora the ossuary at Sedlec. Bones of 40,000 people decorate a chapel. Highlight: a chandelier made of human bones.

Kristinelaine

Or should I have said, "High light!"

DaveJJ

The Capuchin Crypt in Palermo was even more striking than the one in Rome.

bilboburgler

ttt

There is a fine collection of skulls (in three health large pyramids) in a museum in Romania that shows how different races are, well different, all pretty disgusting and un-PC, all collected (I hate to think) in the 1920s and 1930s.

sparkchaser

Sedlec Ossuary

colonna

Santa Maria dell'Anime in Naples. 17th century veneration of the dead continues to the present day.