When we think of the world's great museums, we tend to think of the
Louvre, the Guggenheim or the Victoria and Albert. We do not immediately
think of the Dog Collar Museum, the Kansas Barbed Wire Museum, the
Museum of Broken Relationships or Barney Smith's Toilet Seat Art Museum.
Yet scattered across the globe are museums dedicated to every
conceivable subject, from bananas to Bigfoot, lawnmowers to leprechauns,
teapots to tapeworms, mustard to moist towelettes, and pencils to
penises. Many are serious collections housed in grand buildings, others
are located in tiny premises and are open to visitors by appointment
only, often the result of one person's crazy lifetime obsession.
This book lists the world's 100 weirdest museums in order of quirkiness,
encompassing such delights as The Museum of Witchcraft in Cornwall, a
museum in Kentucky that houses 800 ventriloquists' dolls, the Museum of
Bad Art in Massachusetts, the Paris Sewer Museum, the French Fry Museum
in Bruges, the Museum of Contraception and Abortion in Vienna, the Salt
and Pepper Shaker Museum in Tennessee, Japan's Momofuku Ando Instant
Ramen Museum (quite possibly the world's only museum devoted to instant
noodles), and the Kunstkamera in St Petersburg, home to Peter the
Great's collection of oddities including deformed fetuses and the
decapitated head of a love rival preserved in vinegar. After all, what
holiday is complete until you have seen a 300-year-old decapitated human
head in a jar?
Each entry will include address, contact and admission details, so the
next time you are in Berlin there is no excuse for missing out on a
visit to the Currywurst Museum, the world's leading museum dedicated to
sausages in hot ketchup.
