The Weirdest MUSEUMS in Italy: you won’t believe it!

Italy is a very popular destination among foreign tourists: in particular, it’s beloved for amazing cities like Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan which are appreciated for their history and their art, thus for their museum, like the Uffizi Gallery or the Borghese Gallery that house exhibit extraordinary works. However today we’re not going to talk about those famous and renowned museums, but the weirdest and most bizarre ones, you should definitely visit at least once in your lifetime!

The 10 weirdest museums you should definitely visit

1) Museo del Gelato (Ice-cream Museum)

This museum is located near Bologna, in Anzola nell’Emilia, and it’s entirely devoted to the history, the culture and the tradition of homemade Italian ice-cream, showing how the preparation of ice-cream evolved over time, starting from 12000 years B.C. until the present day. Moreover, it’s possible to see working laboratories to learn how ice-cream is made nowadays, but above all you can taste the various products!

2) Museo della Bora o Magazzino dei Venti (Bora Museum or Warehouse of the Winds)

This free of charge museum, that is located in Trieste, is devoted to the Bora, a very strong and cold wind that characterizes this Italian city. The creators love to define it “museo in progress”, namely not a static and complete space, but in constant motion, just like the wind, in which you can gather information about the wind and read the works of authors such as Rodari and Stendhal who mentioned the Triestine wind.

There two particular elements characterizing this museum:

– l’archivio dei Venti dal Mondo (Museo della Bora’s eclectic wind archive): namely a collection of boxed (or bottled) winds sent by visitors who collected them during a vacation or in their hometown, that are exhibited to allow the visitors to admire them.

– various available games: like crossing a street with wind gusts up to 100km/h!

3) Museo della Merda (The Shit Museum)

This bizarre museum, located in the province of Piacenza, was set up inside a renovated castle and it analyzes… poo… in ecologic terms, since it’s a very useful and reusable product, both as fertilizer and as basic product for bricks and plaster, but also as methane producer; but it’s analyzed from a historical prospective, showing the use of this “precious substance”, from the past to the present day. Moreover, there’s a shop where you can buy items made of “Merdacotta”, a compound of poo and clay like pots, plates, cups…

4) Museo del Risparmio (The Savings Museum)

This museum, located in Turin, focuses on money in all its shades and it’s suitable for children too, since it educates them to its true value. The tour includes the history of money, from the end of bartering to the establishment of ECB (European Central Bank), passing through the crisis of 1929 and many other interesting stages! There’s also a section devoted to the teaching of fundamental concepts: bonds, derivatives, retirement funds, insurances and much more, all accompanied by an interactive part.

5) Museo del Falso e dell’ Inganno (Falseum)

It’s a museum located near the city of Biella, in the Castle of Verrone, that was set up with the purpose of encouraging reflection about the concept of falsity in those who visit it, by exhibiting all the historical falsehoods.In fact, through this historical journey, the visitors are invited to reflect on the deceptions of the past in order to understand their mechanisms and to learn to identify and to discover the deceptions of today’s world.

6) Museo dei Cavatappi (The Corkscrew Museum)

This museum is located in Barolo, one of the most famous cities for wine production, and exhibits 500 samples of corkscrews from all over the world that have been made since 1600, recounting their history and facts.

7) Museo del Rubinetto (The Museum of the Tap)

This museum is located in the province of Novara and exhibits various types of taps, showing their technological evolution over time and the relationship between mankind and water and how they managed to dominate and exploit it for their own purposes. The goal of this building is to raise awareness on a more responsible use of water so that everyone can have access to it.

8) Museo della Satira e della Caricatura (The Museum of Satire and Caricature)

This museum is located in one of the most exclusive in Italy, Forte dei Marmi, in Versilia, and it’s the perfect place for those who love politics and want to read political cartoons and admire caricatures, present and past, from all over the world, featuring the powerful in charge. Moreover, the museum houses a collection of the most famous newspapers and satirica magazines of al times.

9) Museo dei Lucchetti (The Historical Padlock Museum)

This museum, located in the province of Parma, is the first museum in the world devoted to these tiny objects: the collection that is exhibited belongs to Vittorio Cavalli, a carpenter who became a padlock collector after receiving one during his military service and who in 70 years has gathered over 4.ooo portable keyholes of all types, ages, materials, dimensions and shapes, from all over the world, especially from Europe and Asia.

10) Museo vivente degli Insetti (Esapolis)

This museum, located in Padova, is perfect for those who are fond of these little creatures, children included, who will have an entire area at their disposal, Insettolandia, that offers games and educational activities, while everyone else will find multimedia files and interactive activities. The collections of the museum, kept in ancient glass cases, are divided into sections, showing bees, silkworms, spiders, scorpions.

Well, these are the most bizarre museums in Italy! Let us know in the comment section if you have heard of them or if you have visited them. Alternatively, if you want to discover the most beautiful, but unknown, places in Italy, don’t miss our video devoted to this topic!

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