The Most Bizarre Places in Europe

01

Sedlec Ossuary

A woodcarver named František Rint arranged 40,000 human bones into chandeliers, coats of arms, and garlands inside a Czech church — a medieval memento mori that still holds Sunday mass.

02

Catacombs

Eight thousand mummified Palermitans — monks, lawyers, virgins, and infants — stand clothed in their own Sunday best along the corridors of a Capuchin monastery, sorted by profession and preserved since 1599.

03

Gates of hell

In 1971, a Soviet drilling rig collapsed into a natural gas pocket in Turkmenistan's Karakum Desert. Engineers lit it to burn off the gas. It has not gone out in over 50 years.

04

Cave of Altamira

Painted 36,000 years ago on a cave ceiling in northern Spain, the Altamira bison are so anatomically precise that 19th-century archaeologists accused the discoverer of fraud — they simply could not accept the ancients were capable.

05

Wieliczka Salt Mine

Polish salt miners over seven centuries carved a full Gothic cathedral — complete with chandeliers, altarpieces, and bas-relief murals — entirely from grey salt, 101 metres below the earth's surface.

06

Škocjan Caves

The Reka River in Slovenia plunges underground and carves through 6 kilometres of limestone before disappearing entirely — reappearing 34 kilometres away, having hollowed out one of the largest underground canyons on the planet.

07

Castellfollit de la Roca

The 1,000 residents of Castellfollit de la Roca live on a basalt spur exactly 50 metres wide — formed by two lava flows — cantilevered 50 metres above a river gorge in the Catalan foothills.

08

Predjama Castle

Built directly into the mouth of a vertical cave high on a cliff face in Slovenia, Predjama Castle housed a rebel knight named Erasmus of Lueg who held off a siege for over a year by receiving supplies through a secret tunnel.

09

Baarle-Hertog

Baarle-Hertog is a Belgian municipality made of 22 non-contiguous enclaves scattered inside the Netherlands — some so small they contain a single house, with the national border running through the front door.

10

Eisriesenwelt

Eisriesenwelt stretches 42 kilometres into the Austrian Alps — the world's largest accessible ice cave — where wind racing through the entrance freezes meltwater into towers and archways that survive year-round despite mild summers above.