Europe: The Bones

In preparation for the next Lockwood and Company book, which incidentally comes out today, we included several haunt worthy locations on our trip. If you question our choices just imagine visiting any of these places in the dead of night. Oooooo.

Catacombs:


The area above the catacombs was quite lovely and peaceful with delightful trees, meadows and flowers. This gentle scenery belied the three story maze of catacombs underneath.






The tour covered two levels of twisting paths through the best preserved areas of the catacombs. Pictures weren't allowed, these are from public images on the internet. Yes the bones are no longer in the niches but that raises the all important question: where are they? and are they coming for you?


I thought an exploration tour would be cool. One kind of like spelunking but with the possibility of ghosts. That or being a tour guide and playing jokes on one's colleagues.

For some reason these plans haven't really caught on.












Capuchin bone chapel:
The Capuchins are an order of monks philogenetically most closely related to the Franciscans. For some reason (the motivations are really unclear honestly) someone had all of the monks exhumed from a cemetery and reinterred in the crypt under the monastery in the heart of Rome. This relocation of bodies turned into a bizarre 80 year arts and crafts project. Pictures weren't allowed, these are from public images on the internet.

Maybe it started with the flowers made out of bones. I mean flowers and burials tend to go together. But clearly things rapidly escalated to more body outside the graves than inside, note the tiny grave markers and the not in grave bones. And from there it seems to have just gotten increasingly elaborate.






Apparently this bone chapel stuff is a thing that this order of monks does because they have more in Sicily and Palmero which actually look more terrifying.










Frankenstein's castle:

You have probably already seen many pictures of the castle. But what you might have been missing was the fascinating history. For the full history please refer to the helpful wikipedia page. Really when it comes to supernatural hot spots this place has it all. Here are the highlights: This is close to where St George fought the dragon. Yes he beat the dragon but he came to the location of the chapel to die of his dragony poison wounds. The area once must have been quite crowded with dragons because Siegfried (this is the guy from Wagner's Ring Cycle) killed a dragon here too. I guess after over hunting and deforestation the dragon population went extinct. The castle is haunted by the ghost of a knight "Arbogast." Yep that could mean good old Justin's ancestor is floating around and potentially vengeful. I mentioned that he should think about going back to reclaim his family's real estate, somehow I don't think he will. Let's also not forget the witches and the famous monster himself. 

Some cemetaries:

 Some cemeteries were more populated than others. Beware the ghouls that you can't see at first. 

They tent to pop out in the least expected places. Except, well, one does tend to expect them in haunted graveyards, haunted castles, and basements full of bones. maybe they could branch out more.  

But carry silver and even if you have been imagining it, don't actually spend a haunted night in any of these places. 

Enjoy reading the book!