Peroxide Bunny on the Move: The Strange & Unusual Tour

I blame "old people Tik Tok" entirely for this idea.

You know how your phone can overhear a conversation and then all of a sudden all of your ads are about that thing? I once had that happen while I was talking about my new full-body bathing suit to help combat getting hives every time I went in the sun. (PS: It's glorious. The bathing suit, not the hives.) but then I started getting a bunch of weird ads for full face coverings from Japan that, while very practical i'm sure, really felt like I was being read to filth by the internet.

So, back to "old people Tiktok" aka reels and shorts - as we approached my favourite holiday this year, my algorithms have been feeding me videos of odd places in Europe all autumn. I don't know if it was picking up on my Nancy from The Craft costume idea, or the witchy nonsense me and the gals get up to when we go camping, but my suggested content is all delightfully spooky and macabre. Do I want to see an old witches gathering spot in the woods of Scotland? How about the actual tree the nursury rhyme "Rock a Bye Baby" was based on? How about an old house in London that's been preserved since the 1800s at the behest of it's last occupant? OF COURSE I DO YOU FOOLS.

At first, I was just curious and wanted collect as many examples to add to my list. I fucking love a list. Hit me up with an organized stream of data, directly to my veins, sir. Better yet, stick that shit in a spreadsheet UNHHHH yes please!

The list was surprisingly easy to populate, and the more time I spent looking, the more weird shit I found. And there's something about European weird shit, versus North American weird shit. Like we tried to find the strange and unusual during the Van Plan; the ghost tours in Tombstone, the mystery spot The Thing! in Arizona, not to mention all the kooky things in Canada I've seen in my time - but in Europe all the strangeness is OLD AS HELL. Like, behold! Here's the largest known specimen of human shit...it's from the 9th century. Or, what ho! Fancy a pint at the local pub? Oh yeah, it's been here since 1189 AD!

The nerd in me loved the history of it all, and the spreadsheet lover wanted to collect as many weird places as possible and put them down in at list. And once I started doing that, I started seeing how absolutely insane and fun it would be to one day go on a trip that ONLY explored the weird shit. Like yes, if I went to the UK, I might do the normal tourist things along the way, but the priority would be to go to see as many oddities as possible.

So here's my list - It's not every strange attraction, but it is filled with the ones that appeal to me.

1. Surgeons' Hall Museum - Edinburgh, Scotland

Let's be honest here - if you can look me straight in my eye and tell me that you haven't wanted to collect weird things in jars then I'll eat my own pants. This is some creepy science shit from times when maybe collecting things in Jars was ethically okay (sure, Jan). Regardless, this Museum is the home to one of the largest pathology collections (a.k.a. collection of human bodily samples) in the world and the deeply disturbed side of me wants to go and stare intensely at all these jars, smiling like a psycho.

2. Frankenstein Bar - Edinburgh, Scotland

Delicious beverages: ✅

Unique atmosphere: ✅

Frankenstein's Monster rising from the dead every 30 minutes: also ✅

This place apparently has three bars on three levels, in an old 19th century church that has been transformed into the kind of campiness that I can only dream of in my drinking establishments.

3. Camera Obscura & World of Illusions - Edinburgh, Scotland

Listen, I just want to live my best Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory life. I want to be in a hallway that gets smaller or I get bigger or whatever. I might never eat that delicious looking daffodil teacup that Gene Wilder does in the big candy room, but I can do the hallway thing if I go here! There are apparently 5 floors of trippy optical illusions including a mirror maze, holograms, and something called a "vortex tunnel"? Sounds insane - I'm in.

4. The Edinburgh Dungeon - Edinburgh, Scotland

I think we've already discussed "camp" in #2, lets just say this builds on that.

The promotional photos of this place are the only thing I want in my life. Make it spooky, make it theatrically awkward, make it over the top.

This place is apparently a tour of the Edinburgh vaults, and it has live actor shows and interactive rides to show various historical events from Scottish history. I did see something about "audience participation" that made my insides pucker in protest, but in the name of all that's absurd, I would risk it.

5. Gilmerton Cove - Edinburgh, Scotland

Yes. Yes. Yes! Take me underground and show me a good time, sir! And a Mystery to boot? Is this heaven, or is it just a creepy girl's instagram?

Gilmerton Cove is a subterranean complex of passageways and chambers carved out of the sandstone bedrock that no-one knows when, by whom, or what it was used for.

6. Clootie Well - Munlochie, Blask Isle, Scotland

Well, "best named attraction" is off the table then.

The Clootie Well was a rather weird remnant of an ancient tradition once commonly found in Scotland and Ireland, of holy wells to which pilgrims would come and make offerings, usually in the hope of having an illness cured.

And what is a "Clootie" you ask? My best guesses were adult diaper and some kind of phlegm-based globule. Alas, it's just a strip of material used as a rag - but when there's a whole bunch of them tied around trees in the middle of nowhere, it makes it creepy and magical. Can you imagine taking a casual woodland walk and stumbling across this? I'd wish I had that adult diaper and promptly shit my pants.

7. Fingal's Cave - Staffa, Scotland

There are two things you should know about me: 1) I love a weird hobby and 2) rocks are very fucking cool and anyone who says otherwise shall be cast from this Earth in shame.

In high school when my friends would go on vacation they'd ask if I wanted them to get me anything, and I always didn't quite know what to do in those situations - what would I even want from a place like Hawaii? I finally settled on a go-to answer: Get me a rock. But it has to look like it's from the place that you went to. My friend came back with lava rocks - it was perfect.

I took a Geology class in my first year of University with my friend and we both did weirdly good. Like, got a full marks "A" kind of good. Turns out I love learning about the formation of the earth and all the weird ways it's been compressed with pressure and time and the tectonic changes of our world.

Which is why I now know that it wasn't just lava rocks my friend brought me back from Hawaii, it was volcanic glass and vesicular basalt.

Just like I know this cave is made of columnar basalt - it happens when lava cools and contracts. It's also one of the things I have always wanted to see up close in real life.

This sea cave is on the uninhabited island of Staffa, in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, and is known for its natural acoustics. The legend is that the giant Fionn Mac Cumhaill built a bridge between Northern Ireland and Scotland so he could fight his nemesis the giant Benadonner. Things didn't go as planned and Fionn fled back to Ireland destroying the bridge as he went. What remains on either side is the Giant's Causeway and Fingal's Cave.

8. The Alnwick Garden - Alnwick, UK

Is it just me or is there something vibey about poisons?

Like, it's considered to typically be associated with women, it used to come in these super cute colourful bottles, and even though it's macabre as hell, the history of Arsenic Green is grotesquely fascinating.

I also somewhat like the notion that it could slowly vanquish my enemies should they cross me. Is that just me? Bueller?

Anyway, having said all that, you can see why the Alnwick Poison Garden is attractive to me.

I also think the idea of there being an entire garden dedicated solely to the nourishment of the most deadly plants is amazing. Like, here are natures problem children, they deserve to thrive too! Also they need to be protected so you can only come and see them with supervision.

9. The Druids Temple - Masham, UK

I'm so bummed this isn't a real temple! I wish to sacrifice my enemies to a higher power!*

The Druid’s Temple in Masham is not a real temple, but a nineteenth century folly styled after stone circles and well known prehistoric monuments such as Stonehenge. It's still 200 years old and very cool, but not ancient unfortunately.

*why do I suddenly have so many enemies? I have no enemies, I'm just very into hyperbole and exaggeration.

10. The Forbidden Corner - Middleham, Leyburn, UK

This place looks bizarre in the best ways. The Forbidden Corner is a unique labyrinth of tunnels, chambers, follies and surprises created within a four acre garden in the heart of Tupgill Park and the Yorkshire Dales.

From what I can gather, this is a garden but with a bunch of sculptures and structures that are, quite frankly, unhinged.

11. Mother Shipton's Cave - Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, UK

Would this be a creepy place to discover in the woods with no prior knowledge of it's existence? Yes absolutely.

Do I want to experience the calcified lobster and baby heads it in a planned and controlled way? Also yes.

Apart from being an interesting natural phenomenon, this place is associated with the legendary soothsayer and prophetess Mother Shipton (c. 1488–1561), born Ursula Southeil, who was apparently born in the cave and who predicted, among other things, the fates of several rulers, the Great London Fire in 1666, the defeat of the Spanish Armada and the invention of iron.

12. Lancashire Witches Walk - Lancashire, UK

Statue of Agnes Nutter along the witches walk.

The Lancashire Witches Walk is a 51-mile (82 km) long-distance footpath opened in 2012, between Barrowford and Lancaster, all in Lancashire, England. The route was created to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the trials of the Pendle witches and follows the most likely route that the witches were taken, on their way to be sentenced and hanged.

The Pendle witches have been immortalized in several works of writing including the victorian Gothic novel The Lancashire Witches by William Harrison Ainsworth and Good Omens by Terry Pratchet and (the other guy who shall not be named).

13. JORVIK Viking Centre - York, UK

Jorvik Viking Centre is a museum and visitor attraction in York, England, containing lifelike mannequins and life-size dioramas depicting Viking life in the city. Also included: The Lloyds Bank coprolite or fossilised specimen of human faeces -The specimen was dated around the 9th century and is thought to be the largest example of fossilized human poop (paleofeces) ever found.

14. The Major Oak - Edwinshire, Sherwood Forrest, UK

The Major Oak is a large English oak near the village of Edwinstowe in the midst of Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire, England. According to local folklore, it was Robin Hood's shelter where he and his merry men slept.

15. The Robin Hood Experience - Nottingham, UK

A Hands-on family museum in Georgian building with costumes & artifacts dedicated to the local outlaw.

16. Robin Hood Tours with Ezekiel Bone - Nottingham, UK

Character-led walking tours of Nottingham, guided by Ezekiel Bone

17. The City of Caves - Nottingham, UK

Nottingham apparently has like 800 caves underneath it - just a casual network of caves right beneath your feet. I feel like there's likely a few really good sinkhole stories that Karen over at the My Favourite Murder podcast would be very interested to hear about.

I was curious and googled it. Top Story from 2023: Chaos of rat-infested 'sinkhole' at council flats unrepaired for six months

That's right - a sinkhole that apparently breached a sewer when it was forming started spewing rats. RATS.

I'm so off topic it's insane but like...fucking rats, man? Anyway - caves...caves are cool...

The City of Caves experience allows you to take a tour, do some digging, solve a mystery - the works. I'm intrigued but now heavily wary of rats...

18. The Grave of "Little John" - Hathersage, UK

Carrying right along with the Robin Hood theme - I seriously can't help that there are so many attractions about this.

At St. Michael’s Church in Hathersage, lies the purported grave of Robin Hood's right hand man, Little John. Legend has that he is from Hathersage, that he had built a cottage here and that he died here after all of his adventures. There is no proof of course, but this abnormally large grave seems like a fitting tribute if it turns out not to be true.

19. The Museum of Curiosities - Nottingham, UK

I'm not here to support the cruel and unusual demise of animals for the sole purpose of stuffing them.

However.

A collection of old dusty specimens housed in a creepy little display? I'm all in.

This little stop claims to house thousands of haunted artefacts and oddities. SEEMS SAFE.

I don't know if this is tempting fate, like when they find a new mummy and are like "let's crack 'er right open" and anyone who's ever seen the seminal classic The Mummy circa 1999 and starting Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz is immediately like "KEEP IT CLOSED YOU IDIOTS" - or possibly it's just that I've been kind of obsessed with roadside attractions and the strange and mysterious, but this seems like the perfect place to go and satisfy all of those things.

20. Betty Kenny's Tree - Alderwasley Park, Derbyshire, UK

Have you heard the nursury rhyme "Rock a bye Baby"?

Well this is the bough that broke.

According to local legend, Betty Kenny used the tree for more than just shelter. Supposedly, she rocked her babies to sleep in one of the tree’s enormous, hollowed-out branches.

21. Zip World Llechwedd - Llechwedd, Wales

200 year old mines that have been converted to a zip line adventure? Yes. Please.

22. Morbitorium - Newport, Wales, UK

Promises antique lobotomy tools and Victorian sex toys - did I just catch bought of hysteria?

23. Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake - Gloucester, UK

The photos from this never fail to disappoint. It doesn't looks that steep in most of the front-on photos, but by god, when you actually see the incline is INSANE.

Assuming no one is maimed, I'd love to watch these nutters fumble down that hill, all in the name of cheese.

24. Natural History Museum - Tring, UK

The Natural History Museum at Tring was once the private museum of Lionel Walter, 2nd Baron Rothschild, and is located on the grounds of the former Rothschild family home of Tring Park. It houses one of the finest collections of stuffed mammals, birds, reptiles and insects in the United Kingdom.

25. Museum of Witchcraft and Magic - Boscastle, UK

26. Tintagel Castle and Merlyn's Cave - Tintagel, UK

27. Round Table Museum - Winchester, UK

28. Oakley Court - Windsor, UK

Now a fancy hotel, this 1857 Gothic Victorian mansion has been the location for several films including The Brides of Dracula (1962), Witchcraft (1964), the mystery farce Murder by Death (1976); and the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore comedy, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978). It was used as the location for Dr. Frank N. Furter's castle (called The Frankenstein Place) in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). During filming, actress Susan Sarandon, who played Janet Weiss, came down with pneumonia because neither Oakley Court or Bray Studios had heating or bathrooms, because, at the time, Oakley Court was in horrible condition.

I would like to take a step to my right and put my knees in tight.

29. The Nutshell Pub - Bury Saint Edmunds, UK

Measuring just 15 feet by 7 feet, this pub is the Guinness Record holder for smallest pub in Britain. It was originally a fruit stand, this did not deter the owners who transformed it into a charmingly cozy setup that perfectly suited the intimate gatherings of the locals. Over time it's amassed a collection of foreign bank notes, and even a mummified cat to ward of evil spirits.

Accused Witches were taken to a building where The Nutshell pub is today and had their nails cut or locks of hair.

The nails and hair were stored in brown jars in the basement as it was thought that if you were not whole when you died, you wouldn’t be able to come back as a whole witch in the next life.