Travel Destination Blog

Over thousands of years people studied every inch of themselves and called it anatomy. If you’re interested in anatomy, the human science, I have one of the best travel ideas for you.

The Plastinarium, which is located in Guben, Germany, is one of the very unique and, for some people, creepy places to travel. The displays of this museum include plastinated body parts (and sometimes even whole bodies) of humans. The founder of this original museum is Gunther von Hagens.

When the body is plastinated, it doesn’t decompose and serves as a great display for ages. This makes the Plastinarium an educational and an extremely interesting tourist destination for all centuries.

The museum is meant to improve the visual understanding of human body. You can see slices of legs, kidneys and even a sliced person. If you are weak at heart, I don’t recommend you going there.

There are four sections in the Plastinarium. The first one tells about the history of anatomy, from the Renaissance period till nowadays, while the second section concentrates on the preservation techniques that include plastination.

The third one is the learning workshop, where you will be told about the process of plastination and, last, but not the least, is the gift shop. Guess what can you buy from the gift shop? Right, plastinated body parts, but, unfortunately, they are not real. The real (from human body) are sold only to those scientists and institutions that prove to make the purchase for educational or research purposes.

There is a newly opened section in the museum that displays the plastinated parts of animals, which is also very captivating.

“Where do they get those bodies?” you may ask. It turns out there are a lot of people in the world that are willing to donate their bodies to the plastinarium after their death.

This is truly a very controversial and creepy tourist destination, but it’s also a very interesting one. There is only one question left: “Where is the world going to?”

Photo © plastinarium