You never know what wacky can do and some people have a way to express their freakiness en masse. From bog snorkelling to bed racing, there's a bizarre event Europe for every loony out there.
Germans might be known for being formal and rational, but in their annual Mud Olympics release their inhibitions and get dirty. The event's nature is reflected in its name: revellers play football, hand, volleyball and sledding in the mud. In contrast with the traditional Olympics, Germans forget their competitive nature and focus on having fun more than on winning. Although the event is all about spirit and having a blast, it's also used to raise money for charity. Participants pay an entry fee that is then donated to a local hospital to provide cancer patients with counselling.
If you thought that the pumpkin-related event of the year was Halloween, then you hadn't heard of the Ludwigsburg Pumpkin festival. With about 400,000 pumpkins consisting of 500 different varieties, the event offers countless and every conceivable pumpkin-related activity. The main attraction of the event is the Pumpkin Regatta, in which competitors paddle their hollowed out pumpkin to victory with Germany's Ludwigsburg Palace in the background.
A curious event which has become world famous is the Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake. Held annually on the Spring Bank Holiday at Cooper's Hill near Gloucester in England, the event couldn't be truer to its name - it consists of rolling a 9 lb round of Double Gloucester cheese from the top of Cooper's Hill and racing down the hill after it. The first person over the finish line at the bottom of the hill wins the cheese.
Let's get fired up. Leave it to Spaniards to set a city on fire for a fiesta. Set in the city of Valencia in the commemoration of Saint Joseph, the Falles is a week-long celebration of parades and midday fireworks, all night partying and crack-of-dawn marching bands that lead to a massive fire. In one night, Valencians burn almost 350 multi-story sculptures, which amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars of work, risking the city to up in flames.
Equipped with a weighted mountain bike, a mask, a snorkel and occasionally a costume, participants compete at the bottom of a 6ft deep peat bog. Set in the Welsh town of Llanwrtyd Wells, the World Bog Snorkelling Championship takes place every August Bank Holiday.
There might be only one Marilyn Monroe, but in the Latvian capital of Riga, the blonde babies compete dressed up as the iconic Hollywood star. The event called Go Blonde is today the world's biggest blonde festival and boasts beach parties and a Harley Davidson bike parade.
There couldn't be a list of bizarre events without a Hospital Bed Race and that's exactly what they do at the Festival of the Unusual, held in July in France. The event's purpose is to highlight the sports nobody thought were possible, are a product of somebody under some kind of influence or a peculiar sense of humour. Apart from hospital bed racing, of course there was going to be a crepe launching at the country where these delicious pastries were born. Most alarming though, there's also apricot kernel spitting, now there's a reason to run for the hills. Strange or not, this is the opportunity for anyone with skills in bed racing or crepe throwing to go down in history and make it to some kind of unusual record book.