Museo Lara (Lara Museum), Ronda

Housed in the historical building called the "Palace of the Count of the Conquest of the Batanes Islands," Lara Museum is a private museum showcasing the collections of Juan Antonio Lara Jury. Juan's passion is collecting a wide range of bizarre and curious items. His passion took hold at age 10 with coins, and it never relented.

The 18th-century Palace house is located on Arminan Street (Calle de Arminan) in the Old City. It is a house with two upper stories and an interior courtyard. The upper floor is packed with old watches, handguns, sewing machines, typewriters, and microscopes. The lower floor has movie projectors and bullfighting gear. But the cellar houses the creepy stuff.

"Below stairs" we have witchcraft and the Spanish Inquisition. Mannequins garbed as Inquisitor's man a stretching rack, and other torture devices. They are armed with menacing, pointed steel instruments. Witchcraft displays feature bat-headed tarantulas, dragons, and a frog-faced raggedy old witch brewing something vile.

The Lara Museum is the work of a single person with a very specific taste. It's a little bit scary. Scary, maybe, but fascinating as well.