Topdeck Travel is a youth travel company with a passion for creating grand adventures and life-long memories.
In North America, Halloween is all about costumes, candy, and scary movies. It’s one of the few nights a year when everyone embraces the spine-tingling, bone chilling, terrifying things that frighten us most.
But for some, the thrill of experiencing the truly strange and unusual is a yearlong pursuit. For those people – the ghost hunters, mummy chasers, and horror enthusiasts, Topdeck Travel has compiled a list of the 12 creepiest places in Europe to give you the chills this winter:
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Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo, Italy
Descend into the Capuchin Catacombs where nearly 8,000 corpses adorn the walls. The dead lie on shelves or are pinned to the walls in these ill-lit, musty corridors. Among the interred lies a two-year-old girl named Rosalia Lombardo, whose delicate silk bow still adorns her golden hair.
Chapel of Bones, Portugal
The walls of this chapel are lined with the skulls and bones of more than 5,000 skeletons. If that isn’t creepy enough, there are two full corpses hanging high on a wall, rumoured to be an adulterous man and his infant son, as well as inscription over the door that translates to, “We bones that are here, for yours await.” We’ve got chills.
Cambridge Military Hospital, England
A first class military hospital during the First World War, this once sterile and state-of-the-art facility is now no more than a husk of its former self. Surgery tables lined with bone saws are surrounded by piles of peeling paint and dripping walls in this modern day horror set.
Abandoned City of Pripyat, Ukraine
Once the home of almost 50,000 people, all that’s left of the inhabitants of this city following the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster are abandoned relics of the life they once led. Empty swings sway in the wind and children’s toys gather dust in this modern day ghost town.
St. George’s Church, Czech Republic
Following the tragic collapse of the church’s roof during a funeral in the 60s it was abandoned by locals and left to deteriorate. Now, ghostly hooded figures lit by eerie lighting line the pews of this 14th Century church to remind visitors of the church’s past.
The Catacombs in Paris, France
In a network of underground pathways spanning more than 200 miles beneath the streets of Paris lay the remains of 6 million people – known as France’s Empire of the Dead.
Poveglia Island, Italy
This small island near Venice was once used as a quarantine for plague victims in the 18th and 19th centuries and contains mass graves from that time. Not only that, but in the 20th Century the island was home to a mental hospital and it was rumoured that a doctor tortured and killed many patients while working at the facility.
Patarei Prison, Estonia
Originally built as a fortress in the 19th century, Patarei Prison was quickly requisitioned as a prison after WWI. Get a glimpse of Soviet-era prison life as you stroll past this abandoned prison’s hanging room, outdoor prison cages, and execution room where KGB agents shot condemned prisoners.
Hill of Crosses, Lithuania
A site of Christian pilgrimage for hundreds of years, the Hill of Crosses in Lithuania is where Christians pray to Jesus for miracles. Thousands of crosses line the hill of this sacred site dusted with spider webs and cries for help. Definitely not somewhere you want to be lost at night.
Abandoned Psychiatric Hospital in Parma, Italy
Stroll the deserted halls of this old psychiatric hospital in Parma, Italy where skulking painted shadow creatures stalk you from doorways, window sills, and long-vacant wheelchairs. Just you try to make it down the corridor without getting chills.
City of the Dead, Russia
Don’t be fooled by the nice stone houses perched atop this hillside in Russia. These are actually a collection of crypts filled with the bones known as the City of the Dead to locals.
Roman Crypts, Italy
Known locally as the Bone Cemetery, these crypts beneath the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini in Rome contains six chamber like chapels containing the bones of nearly 4,000 Capuchin Friars arranged in decorative patterns. Among the bone mosaics and arches hang the decaying remains of the select few, garbed in their robes and holding crosses in perpetual devotion.
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