And despite it’s well-trodden tourist trail, Europe is also scattered with unique, odd, and extremely obscure sites and attractions that visitors often overlook. Museums dedicated to currywurst in Germany or phallic objects in Iceland; odd sculptures and street art installations in Sarajevo, Prague, and Paris; and the uniqueness of Antoni Gaudi’s works in Barcelona offer visitors respite from admiring yet another baroque church or breathtaking vista.

While the Eiffel Tower or Colosseum are at little risk of losing their prestige to many these lesser-known sites, visitors seeking offbeat attractions will find plenty to marvel at in Europe. During our time exploring this continent we stumbled onto our fair share of unique, obscure, and sometimes plain weird sites. Here are a few of our favorites.

Gnome Sculptures – Wroclaw, Poland

Hundreds of small bronze gnome sculpture, about a foot in height, are scattered through the historic core of Wroclaw, Poland and surrounding neighbourhoods. “Cool” gnomes riding motorcycles, wizard gnomes in tall pointy hats, and environmentally conscious gnomes pushing recycling bins are tucked into corners, suspended form lampposts, and hidden in plain sight for those that know where to look. Anyone want to play I spy?

Comic Strip Murals – Brussels, Belgium

“Yoko Tsuno” – You can really see the size

Much like Gdansk’s gnomes, the city of Brussels is dotted with epic murals depicting a range of famous and obscure comic book characters. Tintin (and his little dog Snowy) is likely the most famous characters to appear in these murals, however even non-comic book reading visitors are sure to spot a few other familiar faces while exploring the city. They murals even have a Wikipedia page.

Pregnant Lady Street Art Installation – Prague, Czech Republic

image via

A contender for the strangest piece of public art we’ve seen to date, this sculpture depicts a pregnant lady, kneeling on the ground with her legs spread and her hands firmly clasped behind her head. Still not obscure enough for Prague, the sculpture is created out of shiny aluminum and is very reminiscent of a lego sculpture.  Overtly sexual, somehow the sculpture works in Prague, even if passing school children look up at it with puzzled expressions.

Carmo Convent – Lisbon, Portugal

Rows of large arches

Ruined by earthquake in 1755, today all that remains of Carmo Convent are the beautiful Gothic pillars of the former church and a small museum. These exterior elements of Carmo Convent are quite stunning, especially on a sunny day, and the site’s museum houses two Peruvian mummies from the 16th century – an off-putting display that only gets creepier upon closer inspection. A real contender for oldest human hair we’ve ever seen in person.

Pere Lachaise Cemetery – Paris, France

The presence of graffiti shows we are in the right place

As far as cemeteries go, Pere Lachaise is far from the strangest we’ve had the chance to explore. What makes Pere Lachaise so unique is that it is the final resting place for The Doors frontman Jim Morrison, whose headstone has grown into something of a shrine. Forty plus years since his death, fans still leave flowers, graffiti, and the odd joint in tribute to Morrison, while a security guard watches to ensure no one jumps the guard rails surrounding his headstone.

Museum of Broken Relationships – Zagreb, Croatia

Rage and Fury Room (via)

It’s always a good sign when you first hear about a quirky museum like this while washing your laundry in an equally quirky laundromat in Dubrovnik, Croatia, and as promised, the Museum of Broken Relationships did not disappoint. The museum’s premise is quite simple – helping people emotionally overcome a failed relationship by contributing to their collection. In under an hour we browsed the personal belongings of hundreds of contributors from around the world. Some of these displays were funny, others angering, touching, or the equivalent of emotional napalm, but all were wonderfully quirky.

Abandoned Beelitz Sanitorium – Berlin, Germany

Delving deeper into Berlin and it’s tumultuous history, I signed up for a tour of the abandoned Beelitz Sanitorium just outside the city limits. A short walk from the primitive train station, in a small clearing, three buildings sit in a horseshoe shape. Constructed in 1902, these buildings first served as a tuberculosis clinic before becoming a hospital during both World Wars, even treating then soldier Adolf Hitler during the first World War. During the Cold War, this site was the largest Soviet hospital outside of Russia before being deserted in the early nineties. Many a rave have been held here since, and while the crumbling buildings are beginning to show their age, their original beauty is still evident.

Museum of Art Fakes – Vienna, Austria

Small space, big art (fakes)

Incorrectly reading the hours of operation for this tiny museum, Travis and I returned three times before we finally got our timing right, however all this back and forth was completely worth it to delve into the world of art fakes. In addition to learning about the immense level of effort that goes into creating an art fake, from the aged paper used to specific hardening processes, brush strokes, and in one case egg yolk washes, we were able to come face to face with fakes so good that they were verified as authentic and sold for millions of dollars.

Europe offers visitors so many different types of attractions, it really is a mixed bag of so many wonderful things. Have you had a chance to visit Europe? What’s the most off-beat or quirky attraction you’ve seen there?

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Edinburgh’s stunning Royal Mile

The classic stone architecture one would expect with Edinburgh Castle in the background

As the third generation of my family born in Canada, I’ve never considered myself anything other than fully Canadian, and although the Duncan surname is still as Scottish as the day my great-grandfather Duncan immigrated from Scotland, I had never put much thought into my own genealogy (besides constructing a family tree in fifth grade). However strolling along Edinburgh’s cobblestone streets I couldn’t help but wonder about these ancestors for which I share a common bloodline. Who were they? What were their lives like? Did they too suffer from a nearly constant need for validation and prefer salty to sweet for their go-to movie theater snack?

Although I’m sure that the movie theater snacking dilemma is a relatively new struggle, delving into ones heritage, it feels impossible not to wonder what characteristics you share with the family members that came before. There is something deliciously enticing about discovering where you come from, of which I was far from immune.

Colourful storefronts add a cheerful feeling to the dark stone buildings

The view of Edinburgh Castle from the valley below

One of many vantage points in the city that offer spectacular views

One sunny afternoon, while walking through a cemetery at the foot of Edinburgh Castle, I stumbled onto a gravestone marked with the surname Duncan. Although I hadn’t been looking for it, the name jumped off the moss-covered slab and I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d found one of my own, with whom I perhaps shared a propensity for being near the water or a fondness for the smell of the Earth after a rainstorm.

Are you my ancestors?

More stunning views – looking out onto the city’s core

A storm rolling in while we look out over the city from the National Museum of Scotland

Walking around Edinburgh, marveling at the city around me, I felt myself began to swell with pride. Although not my hometown or birthplace, I immediately felt a deep connection with Edinburgh and I couldn’t help but gush with pride at how truly remarkable the city is. We’ve been fortunate to visit a lot of incredibly beautiful cities during our time in Europe, including many of the world’s most attractive and popular destinations (Copenhagen, Budapest, and Prague immediately come to mind) and after walking around Edinburgh for only a few hours we were already prepared to add it to this list.

It’s impossible to ignore Edinburgh’s beauty

One of the prettiest gravestones I’ve ever seen

Although I’m sure many visitors will find fault with certain aspects of the city. It is overly touristy (I can foresee the crowds being practically unbearable during the peak summer season) and as a result of all this tourism prices are ridiculously inflated, even compared to other parts of Scotland and the UK. Furthermore, the city isn’t known for it’s famous culinary scene like nearby Glasgow and can’t boast a mind-blowing cultural scene like Liverpool, another city we visited while in the UK. However I’m willing to accept these flaws as minor aspects of one hell of a great overall package – after all, that’s what you do when you fall in love with someone, something, or somewhere.

Until next time, Edinburgh

For me, Edinburgh felt in some ways like coming home after a long absence. After a few hours sleep and a good meal everything easily falls back into place and you can’t help but feel comfortable, a feeling that can be hard to replicate while traveling. Unfortunately our visit, like most, wasn’t nearly long enough. However leaving Edinburgh, I knew I was carrying a part of the city onwards with me, and now that we’ve returned home I have a little ember glowing on deep inside still wondering about my ancestors and their stories. While I may or may not share a bloodline with Anne Avery and Thomas Duncan from the tombstone I stumbled onto during our visit, I have roots in Edinburgh and I can’t wait to return one day and retrace them.

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However, always wanting to instill a good work ethic in their children, my parents made sure that summer vacation wasn’t a complete holiday. We had chores, hauling water and picking rocks off the beach were my least favorite, and without running water or a septic system we also lacked some of the basic comforts at home.

As such, my dad built an outhouse for use when nature called, and plastered posters along the interior to help distract my brother and I from the (hundreds) of spiders that soon made it home. Amongst others was an 80’s Lamborghini, a magazine pull-out of John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John in Grease, and on the inside of the door, right at eye level, was an over sized poster of Jim Morrison’s headstone. A bit morbid perhaps, but that poster became just as much a part of my summers at the lake as building sand castles, catching minnows, and learning to water ski.

And this is where everything begins to loop back into a trip through Europe fifteen years or so later because, as it turns out, Jim Morrison is buried in Paris’ Pere Lachaise Cemetery. Needless to say, when it came time to plan our trip I quickly added a visit to our “to-do list”.

Fallen leaves scattered amongst the headstones

Mini-chapels line the walkways

Located in the 20th arrondissement, Pere Lachaise Cemetary was opened in 1804 and is 44 hectares in size, making it the largest in Paris. With many crumbling headstones and moss covered mini-chapels, the cemetery is actually quite beautiful in a lonely and hauntingly romantic way. As we strolled along the uneven brick paths, it was easy to pick out the forgotten residents – their cracked headstones and cobwebbed chapel doors are a sure sign no one has visited for awhile. However, more difficult to decipher was the age of some of the residents, as many headstones have been worn smooth by the elements.

A sign of a recent visitor

Moss growing within the engraved lines of a star

A stone finial, one of many embellishments in Pere Lachaise

Rust on this door gives a hint to its age

A single rose left in remembrance

With many famous people buried there (Proust, Wilde, and Chopin), Pere Lachaise is actually frequented by many curious tourists (like us) and provides a map of it’s more prominent grave-sites. Unfortunately for us the maps were located at the main entrance, and we entered from the side. Despite this, finding Jim Morrison’s final resting place was actually relatively easy.

The presence of graffiti shows we are in the right place

Candles, flowers, and poems left by adoring fans

Due to the rock star’s loyal and rambunctious fan base, a guard rail has been set up to dissuade people from having sex on, taking drugs off of, or vandalizing the tomb stone (apparently all, and more, have occurred in the past). However, we still saw a couple people easily jump the rail to place candles or joints on the headstone and pose for the necessary photos.

After snapping a few photos ourselves we set off to wander again, leaving the Lizard King to rest in peace.

Three little mini-chapels all in a row

A bright blue door stands out amongst the gray

Have you taken the time to explore a cemetery while traveling? What’s you’re take on this – creepy or cool?

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