Purple 10: Worlds creepiest places
Not content with sharing our most haunted hotels, our Halloween theme continues, there are still plenty of places to visit in broad daylight that’ll still give you the chills. Here are some of our top picks.
- Island of Dolls, Mexico City This really is one weird tourist attraction. In the canals south of Mexico City, you’ll find Isla de las Munecas, where hundreds of mutilated and decaying dolls are hung from trees. With severed limbs, decapitated heads and gouged out eyes hanging everywhere, from nearly every surface, you probably won’t ever want to make a return visit here. It’s said the ‘tradition’ started some five decades ago, when the island’s only inhabitant found the body of a young girl drowned in the canal. When he saw a doll floating by soon after, he hung it from a tree to appease her soul and protect the island. For reasons known only to himself, he continued to scavenge dolls and hang them up in an effort to please the girl’s spirit. A good one to start off this list of worlds creepiest places.
- Church of bones, Prague The ossuary underneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints in the Czech capital , is made from the skeletons of between 40,000 and 70,000 people. The bones have been ‘artistically’ arranged to form huge wall coverings, decorations and furnishings in the chapel. There is even a huge chandelier of bones, containing at least one of every bone from the human body and a full garland of skulls hangs from the wall. Not one for the faint hearted.
- Chase Vault, Oistins, Christ Church, Barbados The Caribbean maybe isn’t the first place you think of in terms of haunting and ghosts, but Chase Vault is reportedly the home of mysterious moving coffins. A wealthy family acquired the vault in 1808 and at the time it had only one occupant. According to legend, every time the heavily sealed vault was opened for a new burial, all the coffins had changed places. Some were flipped upside down and others moved as if they had been thrown around at will. There were no footprints, or markings to show how the coffins could have been moved.
- The Colosseum, Rome, Italy Of course a place where gladiators and prisoners fought to the death will have a creepy atmosphere and guides as well as tourists have reported being touched or pushed, hearing strange words whispered in their ears and weeping throughout the site. Perhaps the creepiest part is the sound of ghostly animal noises of the sight of a Roman soldier who stands guard every night.
- Leap Castle, Ireland One of Ireland’s most haunted places, Leap Castle saw many people imprisoned and executed inside the castle walls over the centuries. It was even the places where occult activities were said to be held with creatures summoned from another universe. The main hauntings are said to be as a result of a fierce rivalry between brothers in the 1500s, which ended in one plunging his sword into the other, a priest who was reading mass. The butchered priest fell dead across the alter and died right in front of his family.
- Catacombs, Paris, France The tunnels under the French capital are filled with the remains of around six million people. The long, meandering pasages are said to run for miles and miles. With caverns and detours at every turn, it would be easy to get lost amongst the mass graves without a guide.
- Aokigahara Forest, Japan Found right at the base of Mount Fiji, this is known as Japan’s suicide forest, where up to 100 bodies are discovered every year. A sad place, signs have been put up in English and in Japanese urging people not to commit suicide, while a team of volunteers do a body search annually.
- Actun Tunichil Muknal, Belize This was only discovered in 1989 and has provided huge insight into Mayan traditions. The most disturbing one being that this is filled with skeletons, mostly of children, that were sacrificed by having their skulls crushed. Only a handful of guides are allowed access, and you’ll need a guide here, so you don’t get lost in the labyrinthine caves or stumble into cavern lakes.
- Sighisoara, Romania Located in what was once known as Transylvania, this is the birthplace of Vlad the Impaler, who was the real life inspiration behind Count Dracula, still scaring people in films and books today.
- The Winchester House, San Jose, USA What once started as an eight room home, sprawled into a 160 room mansion, by its owner Sarah Winchester. Her husband was the maker of Winchester rifles and she was told by a medium that the house was haunted by the spirits of people killed by the guns. The only way to stop them was by building always building a house. There are doors that lead to nothing, steps to nowhere and the number 13 features prominently.
