Sewer Tour, Brighton, England
Brighton’s sewers are a Victorian engineering marvel built to cope with the town’s increasing waste as its population expanded rapidly in the 19th century. Bring sensible footwear and a sure footing as you venture underground to explore the extraordinary workings of this murky world beneath your feet
Brighton Sewer toursHistoric Toilet Tour, York, England
See the parts of York that others miss with York Walk, a team of knowledgeable locals that runs entertaining tours round this beautiful historic city. One of their most entertaining walks is the Historic Toilet Tour, a jaunt through the pungent history of the public toilet. Learn about Viking toilets, Roman conveniences and try out a medieval garderobe. If you’d rather a less specialist tour, York Walk also leads general interest and history tours.
York ToursCockroaches Hall of Fame
Plano, Texas, USA
We’d have loved to have been there the first time pest control specialist Michael Bohdan’s voiced his idea to impersonate famous characters in through the medium of deceased cockroaches. Bizarrely, it’s taken off though and Ross Peroach, David Letteroach and Marlin Monroach are amongst the stars you can see at Cockroaches Hall of Fame. If dead cockroaches aren’t your bag, then he has live Madagascar hissing roaches as well. Just fight any instincts you have to kill them with a shoe
Cockroaches Hall of FameThe Island of the Dolls
Mexico City
Hundreds of creepy, mutilated dolls cover an island deep in the swampy canals near Mexico City - their severed limbs and blank eyes adorning trees and fences. During the day it’s a bit eerie. At night it’s the kind of stuff nightmares are made of. Especially when you know the reason they’re there is because over half a century ago the island’s only inhabitant, Don Julian Santana, found the body of a drowned child and consequently started leaving the dolls there to appease her tortured soul. Weirdly, he ended up drowning there too
Island of DollsKarner Bone House
Hallstatt, Austria
Not many tourist attractions are born as a solution to a lack of cemetery space and an urgent need to recycle graves, but this is: lying somewhat out of sync amongst the Sound of Music-esque scenery of this world heritage site on the shores of Lake Hallstatt, is a showcase of 600 human skulls – the latest of which is from a local woman who died in 1983. They’re not entirely aesthetically unpleasing though – they’re painted in decorations such as flowers, leaves and serpents
Karner Bone HouseMuseum of Bad Art
Boston, USA
Every artist would love their work to make it into a gallery, but we’re assuming a gallery with the slogan ‘art too bad to be ignored’ wasn’t the dream. Still, it’s a laugh for tourists, with around 50-70 pieces of the 600-piece collection shown at a one time - including the likes of Sad Baby by Anonymous, which was purchased at a Boston thrift store. As in regular galleries, a descriptive narrative accompanies each work of art. More fun than a gallery of ‘good’ art in many people’s opinion
Museum of Bad ArtIce Aquarium,
Kesennuma, Japan
As in most aquariums, hundreds of different species of marine life – including octopuses, crabs, salmon and saury – are displayed in water. But unlike most aquariums, the water is frozen. And the fish are dead. Be sure to take one of the heavy coats available at the entrance - the room temperature is kept at -20 degrees Celsius, and if perusing motionless sea creatures makes you feel rather peckish then you can nip next door to the Sashimi restaurant after
Ice AquariumFling your own food in the USA
Lambert's Cafe in Sikeston, Missouri, also known as 'the Throwed Roll', is the place to go if you feel like catching your own food... However, unlike other catch-your-own restaurants, at the Throwed Roll, you don't fish for your supper, or hunt down your dinner. By 'catch your own' they mean, don't get smacked in the face by flying food! Lambert's Cafe opened in 1942, but it wasn't until 1976, when the original owner's son was faced with a customer who couldn't reach for his bread roll, who said, 'Just throw the damn thing!' and so a tradition began. Nowadays people travel far and wide to have the chance of catching a buttery roll and enjoy some enormous portions of spectacular southern food, and Lambert's number Elvis Presley and Clint Eastwood as past customers. Fun fact? On average the Throwed Roll bake 520 dozen rolls per day, which makes a grand total of 2,246,400 individual rolls each year... that's a lot of throwed rolls
Throwed Rolls