Seeing Saint Catherine's head in a shrine at a church in Siena. It looked so tiny and a bit creepy.

The grossest thing had to be the chapel of bones (Los ossos, I believe) in Evora, Portugal. Made completely out of bones, with a body of a man and child hung on the wall for good measure. You can see a picture here: http://www.markandmonica.com/Travel/evora.htm

Grotesque, eh? Well, maybe this will qualify... In Spain, seeing a man who weighed about 300 lbs who was bold enough (or foolish enough!) to wear a Speedo!!! <BR> <BR>EEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

The heartbreaking museum at Aushwitz with mountains of shoes, hair, and so forth. Nothing else I will ever see could come even close.

This seems rather frivolous next to the other serious responses. But, here goes: <BR> <BR>I'd been skiing in Grindelwald for several days, taking a sauna in the hotel fitness center every afternoon. The sauna was usually empty though there were usually other guests using the whirlpool, sunlamp, etc. I usually wore my bathing suit, but others preferred their altogether; I kept my eyes averted and avoided too much embarrassment. One day, though, the sauna door was stuck, so I gave it a good yank, and revealed <BR> . . . Jabba the Hut . . . splayed au natural . . . about eye level on the sauna platform. After a few seconds, I recovered my manners and went in and enjoyed my sauna. He turned out to be a very nice German gentleman, as I realized at dinner -- his table was next to my own for the hotel's demi-pension dinner all that week! No more sauna; I was chicken!! <BR> <BR>s

anymore???

House of painted skulls in Halstatt (as mentioned before) and sorry...old style french toilets

Where is the Capuchin Crypt in Rome? <BR> <BR>Is it open on weekends?

Two things: In Barcelona, on a very crowded street, everyone on a holiday mood, and looking down, I saw a creature, much like Quaisimodo, with stunted stumps for legs, walking on the back of it's hands (like an ape) with hair all over the face, and trying to make its piteous presence known to the passer by's in order to beg a few coins. My heart almost broke, and I am no stranger to the world. And to think I almost stepped on her/him before I noticed it's hand on the pavement, and I pressed there a few grateful coins. In my heart I whispered, "there for hte grace of God go I."

H A P P Y H A L L O W E E N!!!

up <BR>

The catacombs in Palermo wins hands down. The bodies all displayed in their Sunday bests. In a way I would have preferred them to be more skeletal - there was quite a bit of flesh on some, plus that little girl that is well preserved in a pram (died in about 1920 but looks like she's sleeping, so they say, but looked a bit waxy to me!). They are mainly lined up "standing" along the walls and I was a bit worried they might fall down onto passers by.

I have to second the catacombs in Palermo. Plus when I was there the Discovery channel was filming so all the lights were turned off and a very nice young man walked us around with a flashlight. Super-creepy.

About 10 years ago we were in Riga, Latvia and there was a dead guy laying curbside in the middle of town. People were stepping over him like he wasnt even there.

A guy eating raw chicken on the vaporetto in Venice, 5 a.m. New Year's Eve last year. We could tell that what he was eating was...a little bit tough, maybe sinewy because he kept tugging at it, and we knew that it smelled HORRIBLE - but when we stood up to get off the boat, blatantly rubbernecked to see what he was eating...well, I almost lost it right there and then. <BR>And then 2 days later I got food poisoning from chicken, from the McDonald's in Venice. What was I thinking?

Yea Janice what were you thinking...eating at a McDonalds in Venice? Good God Woman!!

Janice--not to defend McDonald's chicken, but I'm sure you're aware that the symptoms of food poisoning don't manifest themselves until about 24 hours after you eaten spoiled food. And for real food poisoning, you would end up in the hospital. <BR> <BR>Anyway, the most grotesque thing I've ever seen while traveling, on the appropriate subject of food, is deep-fried Mars bars (what we call Milky Ways in the US). Yes, I witnessed this horrific scene at more than one chip shop in Northern Ireland. They would take your average candy bar, dip it in batter and deep fry it. I never got drunk enough to try it. I don't think I could get that drunk.

Although I have seen most of the grotesque sites mentioned above, I think the one that disturbed me the most was the Museum of Torture in Milan. This was a tower filled with various eloborate torture devices used during the Inquisition. <BR> <BR>I can't fathom the demented minds that created machines designed to pierce, impale, crush and mutilate the human body in literally hundreds of ways. I don't know what was worse: imagining the horror of being subjected to these terrible instruments, or the glee of the awful people who invented and used them in the name of God and religion.

An Italian "rock" band playing Yellow River.Worse than flying cockroaches.

We were once entranced by a brass and woodwind orchestra playing a medly of Beatles greatest hits in the hill town of Montefalco, Umbria. It wasn't grotesque, but it certainly was amusing.