Before we go on vacation, we plan our route very carefully, and we learn as much as possible about the place we will be visiting. Different people go on vacations for different reasons: some look for peace and quiet, and some want to deal with their fears face-to-face and challenge themselves. However, not everyone has the time or the money to visit every place they want. But if you find time to read this article, you will take a small but very interesting journey.
List of places that can make you feel like you are a character in a horror movie. If you are one of those people who need a big dose of adrenaline in their lives, you have to visit at least one of these places. We also prepared a bonus for you that will show you how unusual and weird the things in deserts can be.
9. The Chapel of Bones
This chapel is located in Évora, Portugal, and it is one of the most famous monuments of the city. The chapel gets its name from the interior walls that are covered and decorated with human skulls and bones.
The Chapel of Bones was built in the 16th century by a Franciscan monk who wanted to tell his brothers that life is short. This is why the walls are covered with bones. At the entrance of the chapel, there is a sign: Nós ossos que aqui estamos pelos vossos esperamos. This can be translated as We bones that here are, for yours await.
8. Hoia Forest
Hoia Forest is situated in Transylvania and is famous for various stories about paranormal events. According to the legend, the forest is named after a shepherd who once entered the forest with animals and disappeared with them in a thick fog. No signs of an assault were found.
Many researchers claim that they experienced fear, they panicked, and they heard different voices while they were in the forest — all for unexplained reasons. Some of them are convinced they saw a UFO there; others are sure they met ghosts. It’s hard to believe any of this, even though there are photos that supposedly captured these events. But is there a better place than Transylvania for stuff like this to happen?
7. The Hill of Crosses
The Hill of Crosses is a holy site in Lithuania, and it is a hill with a huge number of crosses on it. The exact number of crosses is unknown, but, according to some calculations in the ’90s, there were about 50,000.
The site is not a cemetery, but more and more crosses appear there because people believe that if you leave a cross on the hill, you will be lucky. There is no accurate information about the time and the reasons for why the Hill was made in the first place.
6. El Caminito del Rey
El Caminito del Rey is Spanish for “The King’s Little Pathway.” It is a concrete construction with steel rails in the rock. The path is located between the Chorro and Gaitanejo waterfalls in Malaga, Spain, and it is very high above the ground. The path is 1.8 miles long and just 3.2 feet wide.
It was built in 1905 as an auxiliary path for workers who were building the dam. The path was used to get from one side of the canyon to the other. The “King” name was given to the path after Alfonso XIII, the king of Spain, walked on it in the opening ceremony.
5. Hanging coffins
Sagada is very attractive to tourists because this area was once a part of the ocean. Now there are a lot of caves that many foreigners to the Philippines want to visit. In addition to the caves, there are many rocks in Sagada, and on one of them, you can see hanging coffins. It’s not a very pleasant view.
Burial in hanging coffins is a very old tradition, and coffins were carved from solid pieces of wood. After the deceased had been placed inside, the coffin was put on very high cliffs (up to 380 feet) or in caves. According to the legend, the mountains were a ladder between Earth and heaven.
4. The running of the bulls (Spanish national tradition)
The encierro is a tradition where you have to run away from bulls that have been let free on purpose. This is still a popular form of entertainment in many villages in Spain. The most popular encierro is held in Pamplona during the festival of San Fermín.
The route is around 0.6 miles, and everyone is welcome to participate — even tourists. The encierro starts after the explosion of a firecracker, and then the bulls are let free, and the participants run away from them. There are no conditions that you have to run the entire distance. So if you feel that you are in danger, you can hide somewhere.
3. The Capuchin Catacombs
In Palermo, Italy, there are catacombs where more than 8,000 people were buried. This place is one of the most famous mummy exhibitions.
The catacombs were built at the end of the 16th century when the number of the Capucci monastery attendants increased and they needed a bigger burial site. In the 18th-19th centuries, this place became a luxury place for the burial of clergy and bourgeois families. The catacombs were officially closed only in 1882. Since then, no one has been buried there.
2. Shipwreck in the Solomon Islands
This place is uncharted territory for ships because there are a lot of underwater coral formations. In 2000, the Liberian cruise ship World Discoverer got stuck near the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean. None of the passengers were hurt, but there was no way to rescue the ship itself, so it became a home for fish and other sea creatures.
1. Car Cemetery
This place looks like some new zombie movie promo, but, in fact, it’s a real place in Belgium. According to urban legend, after World War II, American soldiers departed and left their cars in the forest. Many years later, nature took over, and the forest consumed the cars.
Bonus: Mano del Desierto
This unusual sculpture is located in the Atacama Desert in Chile. It is a human hand, 1/4 of which is underground. Mano del Desierto is a very popular place for very different kinds of filmings: commercials and music videos. It is often painted with graffiti, so the government has to send workers to clean it.
The sculpture was constructed by the Chilean sculptor Mario Irarrázabal. It is built of concrete with a base of iron. According to the author, it is supposed to express human injustice, loneliness, and suffering, and the impressive size expresses vulnerability and helplessness. Mano del Desierto was inaugurated on March 28, 1992.
