Maira

Memories of Europe are usually filled with beautiful scenery, fascinating historical sites, outstanding works of art, but.... what if you were asked what was the most grotesque thing you saw in Europe? <BR> <BR>What would you answer? <BR> <BR>My answer would be a saintly relic in the Royal Pantheon in Leon, Spain. The fingers of a saint; it was a SCARY sight. Close second; the Criminals Museum in Rothenburg, Germany. There were things in that museum that still raise the hair on the back of my neck....

Al

My vote: the Ossuaire at Verdun, an enormous building on the battlefield cemetery that contains the bones of thousands and thousands of men, all collected from the surrounding area and piled in a giant jumble in the building's basement.

Charlie

Well there was this redhead in the <BR>Amsterdam red light district that,oh never mind,it's a long story.

Bridget

Definately the catacombs in Paris! I couldn't get through that place fast enough -- all those bones in a damp dark underground tunnel -- yuck!!! And even more gross was the guards who checked our bags at the end of the "tour" to make sure we didn't take any "souviners!" AS IF!!!! =)

Donna

The dungeon exhibit at Madame Tussaude's in London . . . you can smell the stench and you can feel the horror and you can hear the screams as the guillotine drops behind the curtain. Ick, Ick, Ick. Get me out of there fast.

elvira

Maira brought back eeeeyyuuuu memories (thankyouverymuch): Malta, island of churches, wandering from one to another "hey here's a church dedicated to sailors" dark, no windows...giant glass case with an entire skeleton "can we go home now?" no, on to the next church dark no windows glass case with a HAND "NOW can we go home??" yup, but first stop....wine store.

Jo

I don't think I'll forget the small church about an hour or so out of Prague (sorry forgotton the name of the town) where the interior is lined with over 40,000 human skeletons. Not to mention the exquisite chandelier containing every single bone of the human body... <BR>

Kristy

Jo - <BR> <BR>That's the Ossuary in Kutna Hora - it's very beautiful, in a bizarre way... Try the Capuchin Crypt in Rome - it is pretty amazing what a bunch of creative monks can do with a couple thousand skeletons!

Catherine

The most grotesque sight I saw was the burnt out village of Oradur sur Glane in France.It was a terrible atrocity by the Nazis. <BR>The church where 200 women and children were burned to death was particularly poignant. <BR>My husband has a photo of the bones in the Paris catacombs in his office.When the job is getting to stressful he looks at it.He says it puts all the problems in perspective.

Kavey

Kristy <BR> <BR>I was also going to say teh Capuchin Crypt in Rome! <BR> <BR>The sight of what are in a sense works of art made entirely of human bones was more surreal than grotesque... <BR> <BR>Wouldnt have missed it though...

kristi

The statue of St. Bartholomew, who was flayed while still alive, in the Duomo in Milan. Yuck!

Mary

There's a painting in the Musee D'Orsay in Paris that shows a person who's head is cut off, and is rolling down a flight of stairs. I can't get that horrible image out of my head.

lisa

My "grotesque" experiences in Europe were mainly hygiene-related, unfortunately. Seeing the waiter in Florence use the urinal against the wall off the dining room, which had no sink nearby, and proceed to wait on his tables. Also in Florence, watching the gelato scooper drop a scoop of gelato on the floor, then pick it up with her hands and put it BACK on the cone and hand it to a patron. Just thinking about it gives me the heebie-jeebies.

kristi

Lisa, you reminded me of a couple more. In Kharkov, Russia we went to the ballet and the ladies bathroom had stalls with just a hole in the floor! Try that with a dress on! And on Aeroflot, we watched the flight attendants fill up used glasses with mineral water. I can't even begin to talk about the model dairy farm! I lost at least 10 lbs in Russia because I was afraid to eat!

elvira

Oh yuck you reminded me of two other icky things: <BR>A church in Paris, I think (I've tried to blot this from my memory): female saint when she was dug up had not decomposed so now she's on display in the church (lovely church with blue ceiling, clouds, Virgin Mary in lovely white robes - and then this dead nun in a glass case). <BR>In Morocco, in a taxi from Tangier to Chefchouen - we stop at a roadside cafe. Moroccan toilet outside (tin shed, spigot and bucket outside the 'door', fill up the bucket, take it inside, throw the water down the hole in the ground, we appeared to be the first to do this) then the cab driver ordered our lunch: meat sliced from the carcasses hanging outside over the grill, it and the bread with a nice dusting of flies, and the driver passed us bread with these hands that hadn't been washed since God was a baby. We carry Wetwipes, so we handed him one. The paper was totally black. We ate anyway and never got sick...go figure.

Valerie

In London:the mummies in the British Museum that are half unwrapped along with the fully preserved "Bog Man" who is thousands of years old. The London dungeon showing the torture hundreds of years ago and finally the "Sinister side of London" bus tour that took you to a haunted mansion, you could just feel the spirits lingering in the hallways!

Deb

Several come to mind... <BR> <BR>I agree with the Capuchin crypt in Rome. but I certainly wouldn't have missed it. <BR> <BR>More poignantly was when my very sincere Austrian penpal took me to her own parish church and encased in one of the side altars was a skeleton in costly robes and jewels. This where the priest would kneel down. My friend didn't even bat an eyelash. <BR> <BR>But perhaps the most sombering was Auschwitz/Burkenwald. I went there while Poland was still under Communism rule and one thing about the Poles they didn't forget. Compared to Auschwitz, Dachau was a walk in the park. <BR> <BR>Deb

steve

Hallstatt Austria. Because of little cemetary space, bones are exhumed after a few years and stored. Drawings are made on the skulls (for example, a flower if it was a young girl). When I was there a little boy picked up a skull and the jaw fell off!

topper

toppie-top

John

A couple from eastern Europe (cold war era, mostly): <BR> <BR>School kids touring the gorgeous Kazan Cathedral in Leningrad/St. Petersburg which served for years as the “Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism” featuring depictions of religious decadence in the West including photos of Charles Manson and Anton Levay, the famous society and media warlock in San Francisco, next to the Pope and Billy Graham; <BR> <BR>A stream in the gardens around Chopin’s house in Poland (sitting under the vines, listening through open windows while visiting pianists play that glorious music on the maestro’s piano) – said stream stained a color-not-found-in-nature sort of turquoise from a nearby factory’s outfall; <BR> <BR>And from the west, any given Spanish bullfight. This is art? <BR>