When I visited Cesky Krumlov, I went to a place called the Fairy Tale House, which is a what most would call a puppet museum. To me, it is a separate universe that one can ascend into, away from the grey cobble stone street exiting the realm of the Medieval paradise of the cloudy, touristy Czech town. It felt like some Tom Waits carnival song coming across some awkward childhood memory that you cannot be sure if it was a dream or reality.
It may have been the creepiest place I’ve seen, and it blew haunted houses out of the water. There were displays through glass windows of evil bloated puppets making sacrifices to gaunt reddish puppets, all suspended in the air by strings.
There were shelves of little children representations, and strange creations of seemingly Oriental stereotypes next to some campy European folkware maidens.
I was surprised by the juxtaposition of the proper pirates standing above the tumorous-nosed elderly puppets, all in some warped fairy tale universe you could only experience from the opposite side of the glass.
The weirdest part was climbing up the final stairs into the attic to the ultimate Satanic lair, and being encountered by an oversized, matte-colored infant hanging by its strings, a product of arrested development of such a dim environment.