20 Scariest Places to go for Halloween Countdown

With Halloween just around the corner, you may be wondering where some of the spookiest, creepiest, eeriest, most haunted and/or best places to visit on Halloween are located around the world. Places where mummies stare back at you or ghosts roam the hallways, caves where witches hide from the world or dungeons where people were once imprisoned and tortured are scattered throughout the world, giving the heebie jeebies to travelers and residents alike.
So, in honor of this spooky holiday, here is a list of the 20 creepiest Halloween destinations around the world. And, we’re not talking fake haunted houses and corn mazes with paid actors. We’re talking downright terrifying places where mysterious happenings occur year-round and which are guaranteed to give you goose bumps. From haunted prisons to caves to catacombs, these bone chilling places will scare the daylights out of you, and may just give you nightmares for weeks.

4. Old Jewish Cemetery, Prague, Czech Republic

The cracked and cock-eyed tombstones in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague date back to the 15th century and this cemetery is the second oldest Jewish burial site in all of Europe. The crooked graves and tombstones, with caskets protruding from the ground in some places, give this cemetery a definite creepy crawly feel.

It is unknown how many people are actually buried in this cemetery, because the tombs have been layered on top of each other. In fact, it is because Jews were forbidden to bury their dead outside of their own quarter that these layers of tombs and stacked remains (there are thought to be twelve) exist. Surrealist author Franz Kafka also often enjoyed periods of reflection in this creepy, old graveyard. Perhaps he was seeking inspiration for his next work.

5 of the World’s Most Haunted Places Countdown

Some people love a good scare; after all, there’s a reason that haunted tours, ghost-hunter shows, and horror movies find such success around the world. If you love being spooked, there are countless ways to incorporate a little bit of mystery and mayhem into your travels, if you dare.
Some of these places – haunted vaults, cities of voodoo witches, creepy crime scenes and suicidal forests  – are enough to make even the most fearless travelers reconsider their trip for “safer” destinations. Put them together and you have got yourself one heck of a fright fest. So grab your flashlight and running shoes and get ready because here are five of the most haunted and bloodcurdling tours in the world. Are you brave enough to take one?

The Underground Vaults in Edinburgh, Scotland

 Discovered less than 30 years ago beneath the bustling streets of Scotland’s capital city, the Edinburgh Vaults are consistently named one of the most haunted places in the world-and for good reason.

For more than 200 years the abandoned vaults remained untouched, trapping the ghostly apparitions underground and leaving them to entertain themselves with memories of Edinburgh’s forgotten past. In their busier days, the vaults were used as cellars, workshops and residences by local business owners who needed easy access to Edinburgh’s South Bridge, however excessive water and waste management issues forced the wealthy residents to abandon the area.
The vaults then became a refuge for Edinburgh’s homeless and a breeding ground for the plague. It is rumored the murderous body snatchers Burke and Hare stored corpses in the vaults before handing them over to Infirmary Street teaching hospital. Tours are available from a variety of companies and cost around £7.00 per person.

5 Creepiest Castles in the World Countdown

  

 Although Tamworth Castle in Staffordshire, England never housed a fictional vampire, the Norman motte-and-bailey design and foreboding stone tower kick up the creep factor. Oh … and it is haunted.

The most famous residents of Tamworth Castle are the Black Lady and the White Lady, both of whom are seen or heard regularly on the castle grounds. The White Lady is said to have thrown herself from the battlements when she learned her lover had been killed, while the Black Lady is allegedly the ghost of a nun named Editha, who was called from her grave by the angry prayers of other nuns after they were expelled from a nearby convent.
Visitors can tour fifteen rooms inside the castle, including the Great Hall, the Dungeon and the Haunted Bedroom.

20 Scariest Places to go for Halloween Countdown

With Halloween just around the corner, you may be wondering where some of the spookiest, creepiest, eeriest, most haunted and/or best places to visit on Halloween are located around the world. Places where mummies stare back at you or ghosts roam the hallways, caves where witches hide from the world or dungeons where people were once imprisoned and tortured are scattered throughout the world, giving the heebie jeebies to travelers and residents alike.
So, in honor of this spooky holiday, here is a list of the 20 creepiest Halloween destinations around the world. And, we’re not talking fake haunted houses and corn mazes with paid actors. We’re talking downright terrifying places where mysterious happenings occur year-round and which are guaranteed to give you goose bumps. From haunted prisons to caves to catacombs, these bone chilling places will scare the daylights out of you, and may just give you nightmares for weeks.

5. San Bernardino Ossuary, Milan, Italy

In a non-distinct and rather unassuming church in Milan is a church full of bones. As you turn the corner in this plainly decorated little church and venture down a cold, narrow hallway (I’m getting the creeps just thinking about it) you find yourself in a chilly, one-room chapel with walls lined with human bones. The cages along the walls, holding skulls and leg and arm bones, are stacked high to the ceiling – but rather than just utilitarian piles or plain old orderly stacks, most of the bones are arranged in a decorative fashion, including several large panels where the bones are formed into cross-like designs.

In wire cases along the back doors are the skulls from individuals who had been beheaded in a nearby piazza outside the modern day La Scala opera house. As it turns out, this chapel in San Bernardino alle Ossa became a storage place for bones when a cemetery next door became full, and in 1210 a room was built to house the bones of deceased. So, since the 13th century, dead people (and maybe their spirits) have been housed in this little church in Milan. What says Halloween better than hanging out with a bunch of bones?

20 Scariest Places to go for Halloween Countdown

With Halloween just around the corner, you may be wondering where some of the spookiest, creepiest, eeriest, most haunted and/or best places to visit on Halloween are located around the world. Places where mummies stare back at you or ghosts roam the hallways, caves where witches hide from the world or dungeons where people were once imprisoned and tortured are scattered throughout the world, giving the heebie jeebies to travelers and residents alike.
So, in honor of this spooky holiday, here is a list of the 20 creepiest Halloween destinations around the world. And, we’re not talking fake haunted houses and corn mazes with paid actors. We’re talking downright terrifying places where mysterious happenings occur year-round and which are guaranteed to give you goose bumps. From haunted prisons to caves to catacombs, these bone chilling places will scare the daylights out of you, and may just give you nightmares for weeks.

6. Bhangarh, India

In a ghost town in the Rajasthan state of India between Jaipur and Alwar City, there remain ruins from a once prosperous town that was mysteriously and abruptly abandoned. Although tranquil during the day, it is said no one dares to hang out in this ghost city after dark because, as legend has it, a curse forced the whole town to be vacated overnight. While some may scoff at this myth, even the Archaeological Survey of India has placed its office near Bhangarh close to a temple to protect it from spirits of the town and has placed a sign stating: “Staying after sunset is strictly prohibited in this area.”

There is a myth surrounding this ghost town that involves a princess and a magician who fell madly in love with her. The magician tried to use his black magic to make the princess his sexual slave, but was killed when his plan was foiled. Legend has it that as the magician died; he cursed the city and wished eternal death upon any person dwelling in the town. The following year, there was a huge battle in the town, which killed everyone involved. Since then, it has been said that anyone who dared to live in Bhangarh would have their roof collapse and would die—which is mysterious as today all of the ruins of houses are without a roof. Whether the creepy legend is true or not, if the Archaeological Survey of India thinks this place is too dangerous at night, so do I.

20 Scariest Places to go for Halloween Countdown

With Halloween just around the corner, you may be wondering where some of the spookiest, creepiest, eeriest, most haunted and/or best places to visit on Halloween are located around the world. Places where mummies stare back at you or ghosts roam the hallways, caves where witches hide from the world or dungeons where people were once imprisoned and tortured are scattered throughout the world, giving the heebie jeebies to travelers and residents alike.
So, in honor of this spooky holiday, here is a list of the 20 creepiest Halloween destinations around the world. And, we’re not talking fake haunted houses and corn mazes with paid actors. We’re talking downright terrifying places where mysterious happenings occur year-round and which are guaranteed to give you goose bumps. From haunted prisons to caves to catacombs, these bone chilling places will scare the daylights out of you, and may just give you nightmares for weeks.

7. Dia de los Muertos Celebration, Oaxaca, Mexico

On All Hallows Eve, Mexican families are known to don costumes, visit the graves of their loved ones, and hold parades in honor of their deceased friends and relatives. Although practiced all over Mexico, Dia de los Muertos is one of the most important celebrations in Oaxaca, as well as one of the most visited events by outsiders. Skeletons are the decoration of choice, and locals pass cemeteries with food, music and drinks, emphasizing both death and celebration at the same time.

The Day of the Dead is a tradition that fused macabre celebrations from Europe with ancient Mayan and Aztec traditions, which resulted in the modern day festivities. The Day of the Dead celebration in Oaxaca is known as one of the largest and most boisterous in all of Mexico, and with skeletons decorating the entire city, lots of traditional food and drinks made in honor of the dead, and a large cemetery parade, Oaxaca is one of the best places for any traveler to visit on Halloween. It will get you in the Halloween spirit and have you wishing Halloween in the United States was as colorful and involved as much pageantry as it does in Mexico.

A Madcow Book Review :The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

In his first novel, Jonas Jonasson has created a very entertaining adventure revolving around some of the major international events of the 20th century, many involving espionage and awesome mayhem. The centenarian hero is Allan Karlsson, a Swede born on May 2, 1905 to a suffragette and a social activist who died a pointless death defending a patch of ground he called The Real Russia. Allan became a “miserably paid errand boy” at Nitroglycerin Ltd.’s factory, where his canny ability to overhear, understand what he heard and be in the right place at the right time would serve him well. After he was orphaned at 15, he began Karlsson Dynamite Company, and his experiments and expertise with explosives would rock the world for the next 85 years.
On May 2, 2005, Allan’s 100th birthday, the Mayor of Malmköping, the director of the Old Folks’ home, and other old people are waiting in the next room to celebrate his longevity. Allan opens the ground-floor window of his room, steps out into a flowerbed and begins his shuffle toward freedom. He is wearing his pee-slippers and has only a bit of money, but he heads for the bus station. A rude young man with Never Again stitched on his jacket asks Allan to guard a huge gray suitcase, but his bus comes while the young man is in the bathroom and Allan chooses to board the bus with the suitcase --- “a decision that said ‘yes’ to life.”
The inevitable chase by the rude young man and other Never Again cohorts to reclaim the gray suitcase with 50 million worth of crown notes lasts for a few weeks. Karlsson’s escape entourage includes a ne’er-do-well cheat, a foul-mouthed redhead, a hot dog vendor, a four-and-a-half-ton Asian elephant, and a dog named Buster.
The pursuit chapters are balanced with chronicles of Allan’s chaotic life, each of them highly implausible but oddly possible. In the chapter 1939-1945, for instance, he is a subservient waiter at the Los Alamos laboratory and listens to the despair of the scientists on controlling a nuclear reaction after their success in achieving it. He is a voracious reader in the world of explosives, studies extensively and solves the problem. While pouring coffee in Robert Oppenheimer’s cup, the solution just slips out: “Well, if you divide the uranium into two equal parts and slap them together only when it is time, then they’ll explode when you want them to.”
The scientists quickly see the sense in his solution, and they are celebrating success when Harry S. Truman walks in, unannounced as usual. He praises the good news, invites Allan for a bite to eat, and shares two bottles of tequila with him. At the conclusion of a convivial evening, they are interrupted by the news that President Roosevelt is dead. Allan’s friendship with Harry endures and surfaces again in other chapters, with Harry once helping Allan obtain a valid Swedish passport in the early morning hours. Possible? Well, yes.
Allan and Herbert Einstein (Albert’s idiotic half-brother, unknown to the world) are sentenced to 30 years in a labor camp in Vladivostok, but after five years, Allan decides he needs a drink. To get that drink, he must escape. And to escape he needs “Soviet uniforms, and then a car, which would need keys in the ignition and a full fuel tank, plus no owner…then the guarded gates would have to open…and nobody would follow them.” The implausible plan works; this success leads to another, and another, and he eventually becomes the aide-decamp at the Indonesian Embassy in Paris.
There is little physical description of Allan: his “hefty fist” swallowing Kim Jong II’s hand and his appearance as the Wild Man of Borneo after not shaving for 15 years. It is up to the reader to create the whole character as the innate likability, philosophical honesty and genuine attachment to living fully are seen.
Jonasson’s book might be best enjoyed across the sofa from another reader, over the course of several days, with an ongoing discussion about the Vietnam War demonstrations, Stalin’s moustache, Mao Tse-tung’s third wife, or the ineptitude of local authorities. Add a bottle of excellent vodka.