Recently updated on January 17th, 2020 at 10:51 pm
It’s almost here! That time of the year when adults and youngsters don their most ghoulish costumes; trick-or-treaters come knocking at your door; the spookiest DVDs make their way off your shelf; and the warm glow of carved-out pumpkins light up the neighbourhood.
Halloween – or All Hallows’ Eve – is an ancient Celtic festival of the dead, known as Samhain. The festival took place on the 31st October, marking the end of the harvest season, and an ending and a beginning in an eternal cycle.
The Celts believed that at this precise time of the year, the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead overlapped. Those who’d died during the past 12 months were thought to return as evil spirits, before they entered the otherworld. Creepy costumes were worn and bonfires and neep lanterns lit to ward off the ghouls.
Today, Halloween is celebrated in many different guises across the world; but we reckon doesn’t have to be all about dressing up as Dracula and pumpkin-carving. So we’ve picked some of our spookiest spots in Europe – if you dare to drop by …
The Crypt of Santa Maria – Rome, Italy
The church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini is a particularly creepy place to spend Halloween. Its Capuchin Crypt houses the skeletal remains of 3,700 monks, who donated their bodies to the crypt once they’d died. Bones are nailed to the walls in decorative patterns, and some are even used as light fixtures!
The Cemetery of Pleasures – Lisbon, Portugal
Take tram 28 to the last stop and you’ll find yourself at the gates of the beautiful Cemetery of Pleasures. This famous monumental city of the dead houses ornate, palace-like graves – and it’s anything but morbid. The cemetery’s miniature temples are the resting places of entire families and the more elaborate the grave, the wealthier they were in life.
Catacombs – Paris, France
Forget wallpaper or your favourite Monet print: every inch of this underground city’s walls are clad with skulls, bones and tombstones. The Catacombs of Paris are a 200-mile network of creepy caves and is home to more than six million of the city’s dead. The attraction has just announced that it’s now open at night; just in time for this year’s Halloween.
Gaudí – Barcelona, Spain
Believe in the paranormal? Then head to Barcelona and catch a ghostly glimpse of Gaudí, a Metro station that was built in 1968 but never opened. Legend has it that passengers have seen shadowy characters waiting on the closed station’s platform. Gaudí is right by the Sagrada Família, and if you look carefully en route between Sagrada Família and Sant Pau / Dos de Maig, you can see the almost intact station’s interior. Or maybe more …
There’s still time to join us in any of these cities for the scariest night of the year, with some excellent last-minute savings. Head over to Trafalgar.com.