In preparation of Halloween....spooky places

I love Halloween! I love the fall season, the slightly spooky air, the colorful leaves, the pumkins, the costumes, the cool weather, and the energy it gives me. I was a November baby, so maybe that is just natural for me.

For this year, I'm going to take up my ramblings about fascinating, and a little spooky, places that I'd like to see.

The first, in no particular order, is the Catacombs of the Capuchins in Palermo Italy. 

The Catacombs were used by the local community of religious monks who discovered that the bodies the were left there were being preserved into natural mummies. The catacombs were established in 1599, and after the monk's discovery, became the resting place for many Sicilians, over 8000 in fact.

The place became the burial ground for famous people as well. Many wealthy people wanted to be buried there, richly garbed, almost to be on display!

During the war, the bombing of the monastery destroyed the building and many of the bodies. However, the monastery was rebuilt over what remained of the original site.

In present day, on a visit to the catacombs, someone can walk among the bodies of the long dead, observing their once magnificant clothing and gradually decaying corpses. Some are in better condition than others, but the bodies are separated in categories according to who they were in life, Priests, Monks, men, women, professors, and sadly, children.

The last person laid to rest there was a child, Rosalia Lombaro, who was placed in 1920 and has been called Sleeping Beauty.

In my opinion, this would be a fascinating place to visit, say, in the bright light of day. I have a healthy respect for the afterlife, so I'm not one to ever declare that I don't believe in any supernatural occurances. I like to know that the spirits of the dead go on, that death is just a doorway into a new and better life.

That being said, I would not want to have this discussion next to an empty shell of a person, the mummy that the person used to be. That, I think, is trying my luck. I mean, after I die, I'd like my organs donated and my body neatly entombed. But what if the other guy doesn't feel that way and wants to keep his body a little closer to him?

So what about you? Would you want to go? Would you add it to your European adventure? And would you ever brave the visit at night?

Many thanks to the site:

http://www.sacred-destinations.com/italy/palermo-capuchin-catacombs

Another strange place: Varosha by the sea

A salty breeze slithers between the buildings, creeping through cracks and whistling empty echos of sound.  The sounds of laughter, of footfalls and chatter, are gone.  Windows lie in broken shards, winking like diamonds, littering the sidewalks and dusty floors.  The city is empty.  The stores still boast frozen people in fashions of years before, their plastic hands outstretched.  But trees have stabbed up through the roof and plants thrust the concrete up into buckled gaps.  Their churches are empty but for spirits.

The city is the abandoned resort of Varosha, a victim of a battle between the Greek people of Cyprus and the Turks. It was once a brilliant, glittering tourist attraction, tucked in the sandy beaches.  It now stands, fenced off from the rest of the world, abandoned and left to gradually decay.

The story is fascinating and sad, definitely worth reading.  But my writer's mind wonders beyond the fence.  What must it be like?  What would it feel like to walk the abandoned streets? To peer through the windshields of cars parked permanently for decades?  The city is heavily guarded now, but what if it wasn't?  The looted city has been left for so long, but what could live there?  What might live there hidden in the dark, creeping in the abandoned rooms, feeding off the overgrown gardens?

Here is another place where even a visit would give you shivers.  A haunted past, a violent past, and an unknown future.

Bones and Catacombs

Strange places: bones and catacombs

 

 

 

Deep beneath the pavement of Paris, France, older, even, than some of its more well-known monuments, lies a labyrinth of tunnels lined with stacks of bones.  These are the remains of millions of Parisians, entombed there for all time, in a place that reeks of age and time.  The tunnels are world borne, created by ancient tropical seas which left the layers of stone in their wake as they yielded up to the land.  This limestone then became a vital building block for the civilization that came after it, building great Cathedrals, palaces, and city streets.  The spaces left from the mining were vast systems of passages that became the second grave for many bodies when graveyards were closed in the city.   Now close to six million bodies lay under the city of Paris in an area referred to as “France’s Empire of the Dead”.

 

Visitors to Paris can tour the Catacombs with tour guides and lit passages.  There are reputed to be street signs carved into the walls to indicate where under the city that the visitor is located.  The area is now monitored and protected by police.  But what must it been like before it became a tourist location?  And what of the infinitely more unexplored tunnels?  What might they hold?

 

The bodies were originally moved in the early 1780’s because of the severe crowding in Paris cemeteries and church yards.  Bodies and bones were erupting into people’s cellars.  The extensive space under the city seemed to be a good alternative.  But if your loved one was tucked into one of the cold niches under the city, would you visit with a bouquet of flowers?  If you were looking for a long lost grand relative, would you wade through the tunnels of bones to pay a call?  Under the watchful eye of a guide, I might be tempted to journey into the depths to get a small taste of history, but no further.  I have a healthy respect for the dead and would ultimately want them to rest in peace.  I surely wouldn’t want to bring something back home with me!

 

If given the chance, would you go for the tour?  Would you go with the guide, or are you a more adventurous sort?  Are you the type to creep into one of the hidden entrances to brave the dark by yourself?

Would you be afraid?

 

Thanks to: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2184393/Paris-catacombs-The-skulls-bones-inside-Frances-Empire-Dead.html