Beneath the streets of Palermo is the Capuchin Catacombs, a "human library" of 8,000 embalmed bodies dressed in their funereal finest. Hauntingly hellish visions of these skin-and-bones monks, virgins, poets, and ordinary folk —spanning five centuries — are not easily dismissed.
By Donna Heiderstadt
Walk into Portugal’s Chapel of Bones and there’s an eerie realization: You’re surrounded by the calcified remains of 5,000 people. There’s no escaping these bones — they occupy every sight line. That superbly curved crown molding? Rows of human skulls. Those patterns on the walls? Precisely stacked ribs and tibias. And every year, plenty of travelers come to the town of Evora to be creeped out.
This necropolis-turned-chapel is not unique. With their diabolical displays and professed obsession with mortality, macabre destinations around the world draw hordes of visitors each year to remind them that death, indeed, is inevitable.
Why do we get a kick out of being scared stiff by ghoulish places? “It’s like watching a good horror movie,” says Andrea Liskova, media relations manager for Czech Tourism USA. Of course, visiting a creepy place is more like living in the movie. And, Liskova says, the Czech Republic has its own scary spot — a 15th century Gothic Church about 90 minutes outside Prague containing 40,000 human bones. Would she spend the night? No, she admits, “It’s a very creepy place.”
At these morbid must-see's, the subject matter ranges from religious to political to archeological to bizarre. The Torture Museum in Amsterdam, for example, documents man's cruelty to his fellow man. Both real and reconstructed torture devices give visitors a sense of how deep that cruelty can run. But if you’ve ever wanted to see a skull cracker or limb-dislocating rack, this is the place.
And you don’t have to travel overseas to find creepy attractions. Sunny California has its own dark side. The 160-room Winchester Mystery House in San Jose was built by the heir to the Winchester rifle fortune to appease the spirits of those killed by her family's guns. At least three ghosts are said to live in this labyrinthine Victorian mansion with 2,000 doors and 10,000 windows. The home’s twisting hallways and dead-end stairways may have been designed to confuse unfriendly spirits, but even with 160 rooms, there are only so many places to hide.
Whether you're spooked by skeletons, ghosts, mummies, or murderers, get ready to cover your eyes at the world's creepiest attractions.
Capela dos Ossos, Evora, Portugal
Torture Museum, Amsterdam
This small and unabashedly lowbrow museum chronicles historical torture methods in displays that are not for the squeamish. Fans of Middle Age brutality can admire the agonizing “skull cracker,” the limb-dislocating rack, and that most efficient of killing machines, the guillotine.
Truly Creepy: The disturbing illustrations include one of a naked man hung from his ankles like a wishbone and being sawed in half lengthwise.
From the outside, the Royal Church of St. Francis, located in the picturesque Portuguese town of Evora, seems like any other shrine to piety. But looks can be deceiving. Inside is the Capela dos Ossos, or the Chapel of Bones. Short on space to bury the dead, enterprising monks in the 16th century moved the remains of 5,000 corpses into a consecrated chapel—and, like medieval Martha Stewarts, decorated the space with their bones.
Truly Creepy: Two rotted corpses, of an unknown man and a young child, dangle precariously from nooses.
Port Arthur Historic Sites, Tasmania
This 19th-century Australian penal colony was once home to thousands of violent convicts sentenced to “hell on earth,” and the dissection rooms here are evidence to that. Awful conditions, vicious floggings and isolation in dark, dank cells led to as many as 2,000 deaths. Tragedy made its comeback in April 1996 when a deranged gunman killed 35 workers and visitors in the country’s worst mass murder to date.
Truly Creepy: The most-often reported ghost sightings are not of convicts but of a crying woman and young child
The Museum of Death, Hollywood
This Guanajuato museum’s 111 remarkably preserved mummies were exhumed from the Santa Paula Pantheon between 1865 and 1989. Their facial expressions are especially scary—many seem to be shouting “No!”—and clenched fists protrude from the tattered clothes. It’s like the prop room for a zombie movie—only real.
Truly Creepy: The tiny baby mummies, dressed in local tradition as “Little Angels.”
Winchester Mystery House, San Jose, CA
It took 32 years for Sarah Winchester, reclusive heir to the eponymous rifle empire, to build this labyrinthine 160-room Victorian mansion. She was inspired by séances to quell the spirits of those felled by Winchester bullets. It has 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 fireplaces, 47 stairways—and at least three ghosts. The quagmire of twisting hallways and dead-end stairways were designed to confuse unfriendly apparitions.
Truly Creepy: Paranormal activity is the norm for overnight guests who hear organ music and witness moving lights, turning doorknobs and ghostly figures.
Capuchin Catacombs, Sicily
Palermo may be the birthplace of the mafia, but mob hits are not the city's only gruesome antics. Beneath the streets, behold a “human library” of 8,000 embalmed bodies dressed in their funereal finest. Hauntingly hellish visions of these skin-and-bones monks, virgins, poets, and ordinary folk—spanning five centuries—are not easily dismissed.
Truly Creepy: “Sleeping Beauty,” the miraculously intact body of two-year-old Rosalia Lombardo, who died in 1920.
Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave, Belize
Brave necro-tourists must reach this archeological site near San Ignacio via a guided hike that starts with a neck-deep swim in ice cold, pitch black water. Those with vivid imaginations are advised to stay back at the hotel. Mayans practiced human sacrifice here, as evidenced by the cave's most startling skeleton: the Crystal Maiden, a teenage girl whose bones seem to sparkle.
Truly Creepy: If the bats and spiders don't put you over the edge, the ancient ceramic bowls have “kill holes,” indicating they were used for bloodletting rituals.
Sedlec Ossuary, Czech Republic
Step into this 15th-century Gothic church located in Kutna Hora, about 90 minutes outside Prague, and you’ll immediately think its creator, 19th-century woodcarver Frantisek Rint, got his decorating degree at the University of Hades. The basement-level chapel contains 40,000 skeletons fashioned into skull candelabras, a towering coat of arms, and one seriously morbid chandelier.
Truly Creepy: A garland of gap-eyed skulls hangs from the vaulted ceilings, and the massive bone pyramids put “40,000 skeletons” into perspective.
Mütter Museum, Philadelphia
Run by the centuries-old College of Physicians of Philadelphia, this museum manages to be scientific, shocking and creepy as it chronicles the abnormalities and diseases that ravage human flesh. Exhibits include a gangrenous hand, syphilis-riddled bones, diseased livers and a gargantuan 40-pound colon. Skeletons of giants, dwarfs and Siamese twins, plus sliced sections of a human head, complete the visual assault.
Truly Creepy: The Soap Lady's 19th-century remains that turned into a soap-like substance called adipocere, also known as “grave wax.”
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