If you think visiting a museum is quite boring, you’re deeply mistaken. There are thousands of unusual museums in the world that will amaze anyone.
AdmiGram.com will specifically tell you about just a few of them where you definitely won’t yawn from boredom. If you, as a tourist, find yourself nearby, don’t hesitate to spend your time and visit them.
5 of the most unusual museums in the world
International Spy Museum
USA, Washington
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The museum was founded in July 2002 and is located in the heart of Washington (USA), near the National Mall. The museum features over 600 exhibits confiscated from spies: camera lighters, listening devices, hidden cameras, encryption machines, and even James Bond’s car. And one of the museum’s halls is dedicated to the history of intelligence of the USSR and Russia.
Opening hours: daily from 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM
Tour cost: from $30 USD
Founder and director – Peter Earnest, served 35 years in the CIA. One of the guides is a former Russian fugitive, Oleg Kalugin, a former KGB major general, who was convicted in absentia for treason and stripped of his military rank by court order in 2002. The museum also began to attract former spies as historians and tour guides. If you’re interested in this kind of theme, you’ll probably not limit yourself to a standard hour-long tour, but stay here for the whole day.
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The museum has two main halls. The first one is called “Covers and Legends”. At the entrance, a speaker warns that everyone is being watched. Then the visitor chooses a “legend” for themselves: a name, a biography, a purpose of the trip. To enter the main exhibition area, a person must pass a kind of lie detector and answer questions about themselves correctly. The second hall is the “School for Spies”. Here, CIA and FBI specialists teach basic spy skills from monitors: applying makeup, working with aerial photography, eavesdropping, and finding listening devices, discreetly taking photos, surveillance, as well as teaching the basics of cryptography and code breaking.
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The museum’s organizers also offer a variety of games for visitors, such as the game “Spies in the City”. It was developed at the request of former intelligence officers. Each player receives a personal GPS navigator and headphones. The mission takes an hour and a half to complete. Participants walk around the city in search of keys and secret codes, and before taking action, they must ensure the reliability of the source.
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Museum of Brands
England, London
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The Museum of Brands, Packaging, and Advertising will fascinate visitors with a desire to explore the history of consumer culture through the work of famous brands. The museum’s founder is the English collector Robert Opie, who has amassed around 12,000 exhibits throughout his lifetime.
Opening hours: 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM
Tour cost: from $15 USD
The museum is housed in a large hall divided by partitions to create a labyrinth illuminated by subdued lighting. Brief descriptions of each decade with a list of key events are provided on special stands. All museum exhibits are arranged in strict chronological order.
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The museum allows visitors to delve into memories of the past, seeing long-forgotten packaging of not only beloved products but also the products themselves that had high consumer demand. The exhibits in the museum are everyday, familiar household items – toys, household items, food products such as chips, chocolate bars, popcorn, peanut butter. Through them, a clear and vivid understanding of the era, the level of market development, production technologies, and marketing is formed.
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The museum showcases brands such as Coca-Cola, Kellogg’s, Vodafone, Pringles, Pink Panther, Cadbury chocolate, and many others. Unique artifacts from the collection date back to as early as 1800.
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CORPUS Human Body Museum
Netherlands, Oegstgeest
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The CORPUS Museum, opened in 2008, is located inside a giant 35-meter figure of a sitting person. The museum itself is situated near the university city of Leiden. The creation of such an unusual museum cost the Dutch $27 million. The museum consists of 7 floors, and the tour lasts for 55 minutes.
Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday from 9:30 AM to 3:00 PM
Tour cost: from $25 USD
During this time, visitors journey through all parts of the human body, starting from the feet and moving higher and higher via escalators. Here, in enlarged size, one can see muscles, bones, the heart, kidneys, lungs, digestive organs, eyes, ears, and the brain. The museum showcases what happens inside a person when they sneeze, sleep, how hair grows, how the brain and human receptors work.
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The starting point for visitors is the knee of the giant human figure, and the final destination is the brain. Between these points, visitors embark on an exciting journey through the body, accompanied by learning about its characteristics and capabilities. A pleasant feature of this museum is that touching what is seen inside is allowed.
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It’s worth noting that the museum provides audio guides in various languages: Dutch, English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Chinese. Inside the building, which is integrated into the human body museum, additional information about the human body can be obtained.
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Museum of Death
USA, Hollywood
A visit to the Museum of Death will make your hair stand on end, even if you have nerves of steel. One of the most controversial and unconventional museums in the world was established in 1995. The museum is located on Hollywood Boulevard and operates without days off. Everyone is allowed to enter, however, there is a recommendation at the museum’s ticket office not to bring children, refrain from visiting for pregnant women, and people with weak nervous systems.
Opening hours: from 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM
Tour cost: $20 USD
There are no guides in the museum, but this does not affect visitors’ impressions. The tour takes about 45 minutes. In the museum halls, without sparing the visitors, with all the Hollywood special effects, they tell and show in all its glory photos of bloody incidents, executions, portraits of serial killers, and chilling ‘sounds of death’ echo through the rooms.
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Among the real ‘deadly’ exhibits are the embalmed head of serial killer Henri Landru, nicknamed Bluebeard, who killed women, and the bed of a member of the Heaven’s Gate cult, where human sacrifices were made.
A separate hall of the museum is dedicated to suicide and suicides. Those with strong nerves can view photos and even videos of autopsies in the morgue, embalming devices. Despite all the horror of what’s happening, the Museum of Death doesn’t lack visitors.
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Museum of Alchemy
Czech Republic, Prague
Where else but in Prague, the capital of kings, could the most interesting museum arise – Speculum Alchemiae. It is located in the former laboratory of Edward Kelley, a Scottish alchemist who managed to convince Emperor Rudolf II that he could turn base metals into gold. The duration of the tour takes about an hour.
Opening hours: daily from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM
Tour cost: $8 USD
This museum is interactive. This means that it displays not authentic items (although there are, of course, some), but reconstructions, and the purpose of the exhibition is not to show, but to give an idea of the activities of alchemists and magicians. Many exhibits can be touched, and visitors can even make their own magical elixir. The museum will tell you a lot of new things about the intricacies of alchemy and magic, as well as about mysterious objects associated with this complex craft.
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The modern alchemical laboratory occupies one of the oldest restored buildings in Prague and is protected by UNESCO. Stepping inside the laboratory, visitors feel how everything is literally imbued with the atmosphere of the gloomy and mysterious Middle Ages – a period when science and mysticism were closely intertwined. In addition to the philosophical egg; stuffed animals on which elixirs were tested; furnaces for heating alchemical substances, which visitors can set in motion themselves; wax figures of Rudolf II, Kelley, and his assistant; you can see a recreated room from Faust’s house. This room with a glass floor is painted with mysterious incomprehensible writings.
The figures in black robes look intimidating, and in the corner, through a hole in the ceiling, you can see the legs of a person whom, according to legend, the devil dragged away. There is also a chilling inscription in the room – ‘Many paths lead to magic, but only one leads out of it.’
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image on top: spymuseum via Instagram
