Juan

<BR>Checking into the posts after a few days away and I just don't see any interesting new topics so I thought I'd try this one. What's the strangest thing you've seen in Europe? By that I mean either a place, person or etc. I've seen strange things in people's homes in Europe (such as the time I stayed in a small bedroom which I had to share with a mummified head from South America in a glass case right next to the bed, or the time I stayed with someone who had pet snakes *all over* the apartment in cages including in the bathroom and my bedroom...and also the live rats to feed them with) and also a odd places in Europe (such as the decorative monk's bones all over walls in a basement of a church in Rome or whimsical folk art like that in Chartes done by a garbage collector over 30 years). How about other strange/odd sights you've seen?

Jeff

Juan, <BR> The oddest thing and one of the most awesome was the town of Avebury. It feels very odd to drive into a small village and see all of those enormous stones everywhere. I think the strangest part is that you drive right to them. Half of them are on one side of the road and half are on the other. It is definitely a curious sight. <BR> Another sight that sticks in my mind is Glencoe in Scotland. No place I've ever been gave me the chills more than that place. The brooding hills are mesmerizing and forboding. <BR> The Mannekin Pis in Brussels was strange in that it's not often that you see a urinating statue of a boy in a tuxedo.

Ginny

1. The catacombs in Palermo. Dead, dryed (preserved) people, dressed up in their finest attire. A 2-year old child so well preserved that her 65 year old twin sister visits her regularly (the father of the girls died without revealing the secret of the preservation technique). <BR>2. Sitting on a promentory (sp?) on the island of Panarea (Eoilian Islands), watching sailboats pull into an isolated, absolutely pristine harbor with turquoise water. All 8 people on the sailboat procede to strip down and go skinny dipping, then one-by-one they get on the back of the boat and shower, get dressed, and the boat sails off into the sunset... <BR>3. Also, on the island of Panarea... a nude disco.

Lee

Juan: Good one! There are some strange things out there. <BR> <BR>When I moved to Frankfurt (Sept., '83), we really didn't know much about our surroundings. On weekends, when not working, we would head out and just drive. Usually taking the secondary roads, we would wander into towns that we had never heard of before. On one trip, we drove into the town of Nierstein, parked and just walked around. We strolled up to an enormous church and went inside. There was an organ that Albert Schweitzer had played (according to the small sign) and in the main hall, there were only pews for maybe 1/3 of the church area. That seemed odd to us. An ederly gentleman who turned out to be the caretaker and who only spoke German and us, only English, tried to explain why the missing pews. We didn't understand. He then led us outside to a long one-story building along the perimeter of the grounds. The "doorways" at this building were just gates at the end of short walkways. He motioned for me to look inside one of the gates, which I did. Inside, there were rows and rows of human bones stacked from the floor to the ceiling, for as far as you could see in ether direction! Evidently, the population in the congregation dwindled and they removed those pews and arranged the former parishioners outside. If I understood him at all, I believe these people were victums of the plague. <BR> <BR>A somewhat chilling, but interesting experience. The things you can stumble on... <BR>

anne

All the "bones" stories remind me of the tiny chapel up a hill in Hallstatt, Austria, where hundreds of decoratively painted skulls (ivy for the males, flowers for the females) are neatly stacked, with convenient shelves underneath for the thigh bones.

Al

Europeans take their pets everywhere. Once, in a French cafe, we saw a woman putting bits of food inside her coat. This was repeated over and over. When she got up, the head of a ferret popped out, licked the crumbs off the woman's lapels, and disappeared. The French they are a funny race...

Yakko

The oddest thing that I witnessed in Europe was in Lucerne, Switzerland. It was right around lunch time there and I saw this woman pushing a child in a stroller. The child was figiting from hunger so the mom pulled out a big chocolate bar from her purse. Then she pulled out a hard roll from one of her bags and made her daughter a chocolate bar sandwich! Yuck! I asked a Swiss friend of mine if this if a milk chocolate sandwich is a common lunch entree amoung the Swiss. He told me that it's not. I still to this day have not tried a chocolate sandwich-who knows it might be tasty.

Yakko

The oddest thing that I witnessed in Europe was in Lucerne, Switzerland. It was right around lunch time there and I saw this woman pushing a child in a stroller. The child was figiting from hunger so the mom pulled out a big chocolate bar from her purse. Then she pulled out a hard roll from one of her bags and made her daughter a chocolate bar sandwich! Yuck! I asked a Swiss friend of mine if a milk chocolate sandwich is a common lunch entree amoung the Swiss. He told me that it's not. I still to this day have not tried a chocolate sandwich-who knows it might be tasty.

DonB

American tourists. <BR> <BR>Nikes and jogging suits may be fine for a weekend run to Home Depot; but the hordes of swooshed, loudmouthed, Americans do a disservice to all of us. <BR> <BR>Imagine how odd someone would look arriving at a local McDonald's wearing a tuxedo and you'll have a good idea of how silly WE look when we invade the Champs-Elysees in our workout gear. <BR> <BR>

Lee

Uh-oh. Another "Tacky Tourist" thread. I wouldn't go there... <BR> <BR>Now you've gone and done it! <BR>

Cheryl Z.

<BR>I'm REALLY stressed out this morning but I knew I could come to this forum for a few moments and either relax by reliving trips, or dreaming of future ones, or just have a chuckle! And I had to chuckle when I read Juan's experience with the mummified head - we visited friends once in Belgium who had a mummified puppy (born dead or died shortly afterwards I guess) in a glass on bookshelves in their living room.....a German friend had the skin of one of their deceased dogs hanging on the wall in a rec room (think the head was on it too but can't remember)....Jeff reminded me of the first time we saw the Mannekin Pis too (if that was here in the US, somebody surely would be arrested, or at least picketed!!)......and Don reminded me of all the strange tourists I've seen in white or bright colored bermudas and cartoon tee shirts and bright colored socks. <BR>Thanks - I'm better already!

elvira

What a great thread! My favorite post is the nude disco (I REALLY didn't want that mental picture in my head). <BR>1) The Edith Piaf Museum in Paris is in a fan's apartment; third floor walk-up and he and his little white dog greet you at the door. He's converted 2 of his 4 rooms into a shrine to the Little Sparrow. As a souvenir, you can purchase a key chain of her death's head. <BR>2) Phoenix Suns jersey on a Maltese teenager. <BR>3) Guest of no-star hotel in old Nice, all duded up for a night on the town, with his German shepard draped around his neck as he took the dog down three flights of stairs for a walk. <BR>3) My sister in a Nice laundromat, watching a French soap opera. "I bet that guy in the wheelchair is not really crippled, and he'll have to jump up to save her from the rapist" "But, Sis, you don't understand French!" "Don't have to; a soap is a soap is a soap" The guy then jumped out of the chair to save his secret love from a rapist. <BR>4) Mission Impossible (the TV show) dubbed in French. <BR>

s.fowler

This is a *great* thread. <BR>We arrived in Brno, Czech Rep. for the first time and when we got to our room we turned on the TV to see if they had news in English. [They didn't] What should we see but "Star Trek: Next Generation" which we both love! It was one we had seen, but of course the "Patrick Stewart moment" is when he says "Engage!" It was very disconcerting to see the familiar face and gesture with an incomprehensible Czech word coming out of his mouth! <BR>

Trina

Caveat: There's not a very delicate way of putting this, so please don't flame me for my language. One memory will never escape me. My husband and I were sitting on a bus in the middle of traffic in Barcelona. The traffic was divided by a park area, so there were tons of people around. As we sat there staring out the window, we watched a woman about 10 yards away fidgeting with a newspaper. She proceeded to wad it up and then hiked up her skirt and apparently wiped herself with it. After we thought she'd finished, I guess she decided she liked its texture and decided to permanently place it back up under her skirt. I'm not making this up! We sat directly across from a Spanish couple who had witnessed the same thing yet had no expression whatsoever. My husband and I looked at each other in utter shock and then couldn't help but giggle.

john

Ginny, could you be a little more specific where this island of Panarea (Eoilian Islands) is located? I'm not familiar with it.

michele

THE SIMPSONS in French ..very funny... <BR>Several bugle players in Seville who played their bugles for the Holy Week processions in between taking a drag on their cigarettes that they held in their free hand. Quite a feat... A chador clothed woman in a restroom in Turkey touching -up her make-up and then putting her chador back on....

KT

Nothing really strange comes to mind right now, but a couple of things that were disorienting at the time: <BR> <BR>The huge variety of pickled, mummified or otherwise preserved body parts, or entire bodies, that I've seen in reliquaries in Italian churches. Even with moderate knowledge of church doctrine and the various saints (though I'm not a Catholic), I found it a bit disconcerting at first to see this saint's pickled big toe or part of that saint's skull ensconced in gilt and glass. Must admit, though, after a while you get used to it. <BR> <BR>I live near San Francisco, so I found it delightfully disorienting to sit in an Italian acquaintance's living room watching a dubbed version of the movie "Vertigo." There I was, seeing familiar hometown landmarks, while ensconced in the hills of Umbria. And Jimmy Stewart not only spoke Italian, but he'd lost his very distinctive voice. <BR> <BR>Slightly indelicate: In a very nice caffe in a very nice town in Italy, going into the very nice, very classy restroom and finding a very nice, very modern squat toilet. Up until then, I'd though that they were being phased out, as the previous ones I'd encountered had seemed old and were in less upscale surroundings.

wes fowler

John, <BR>Panarea is located between Stromboli and Sicily in a southwesterly direction from Stomboli. <BR> <BR>Juan, <BR> <BR>If "strange" can also mean "unexpected", a few things immediately come to mind. Hallstadt of course for its cave of skulls and bones, but also the immaculately groomed, brilliantly flowered gravesites of its little cemetary there and throughout the small towns of Bavaria. The unexpected delight of awakening one morning in Langnau, Switzerland to the sound of cowbells and finding a parade of cows, heavily bedecked with floral head pieces, marching into the village's main parking lot to be tethered to parking meters while awaiting a cow judging contest. (That made my day and kept me from touring Luzerne!) On another occasion, I reserved a room, sight unseen, in a hotel on the outskirts of Amersfoort, Netherlands. The ad spoke of an "attractive building in the prettiest spot in Central Holland pleasantly situated adjacent to the estate of Den Treek". Upon arrival, we walked through hip high weeds from the parking lot to the main building, registered in a large room with a bar, library, pool and ping pong table and walked on indoor-outdoor carpet down a long cinder blocked corridor to an austere room. The most brilliantly lit room I've encountered anywhere had no radio, no television, simply a king sized bed, armoire and attached bathroom. We went back to the bar to rethink my choice and were puzzled by an eclectic group of twenty or thirty people who appeared from an adjacent room. Distinguished gentlemen in three piece suits, attractive young women in sweatshirts and jeans, matronly types, young fellows with baseball caps turned backwards comprised the group. One of the distinguished gentlemen, after conferring at the front desk, joined us at the bar, introduced himself as the manager and asked, in immaculate English, how we came to register at his facility. I explained about the brochure and he responded by advising that we were the first tourists he had hosted. The facility, an adjunct of the University of Utrecht, serves as a place where year round seminars are conducted for (his words) "professional philosopherslike those you just saw". Made most welcome, we had a delightful stay in a totally unexpected and strange environment.

Carlos

This one is for Trina: The strangest thing I ever saw was in a square in Barcelona (Placa Real?). A woman hiked up her 3 year old daughter's skirt and made her squat in front of a whole crowd and go poo. I saw the same thing in San Sebastian in Northern Spain. What's weird is that a whole crowd of Americans and Aussies were watching dumbfoundedly as the woman just gave us a "what the f--k is your problem" look. Needless to say, I was suprised to see this in a modern, progressive country.

Mary

We were in Heidelberg, walking up the steps to the Schloss and we were nearly run over by the "stair master" of Heidelberg, a champion step climber. <BR>I thought this man had incredible stamina (he passed us three times as were were ascending the steps).