Travel News You Can Use
By Judy Newell
October 31, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Ten favorite mysterious places

We’ve chosen 10 of IgoUgo’s favorite eerie sites to help you revel in the most mysterious of seasons with a haunted jaunt or two.

Bran Castle–Bran, Romania 

The legend of Dracula—or Vlad Tepes, since you’ll be on a real-name basis once you’ve visited his “dark and frightening” home—harkens back to Bran Castle, rising atop a Transylvanian peak. Today the fortress is a museum, so you can call on Vlad the Impaler any time you want (during operating hours, anyway).

Old Melbourne Gaol–Melbourne, Australia 

Visitors to this infamous jail, today marketed with a “Crime & Justice Experience” subtitle, report feeling “disturbed by lost souls” yet find the trip “strangely intriguing,” especially the death masks and hanging beams of Ned Kelly and other outlaws.

Dilmun Burial Complex–Sar, Bahrain

One of the most intriguing ancient Arabian burial grounds, the Dilmun complex of intertwining graves is perhaps best known for its “honeycomb” appearance. Both the identity of the buried and the function of excavated buildings—thought to be temples of a very early civilization—remain unsolved.

Fort Raleigh National Historic Site–Manteo, North Carolina

After nearly 420 years, visitors to Fort Raleigh are still asking the question, “Where, oh where, is Virginia Dare?” The first baby born to English arrivals in the New World vanished, along with an entire colony of settlers, with a mysterious tree carving their only trace. See the story—minus the mysterious ending—dramatized in the long-running outdoor musical The Lost Colony.

Hill of Crosses–Siauliai, Lithuania 

The hill, sagging under tens of thousands of crosses, is such a striking sight that many visitors to Lithuania claim you haven’t really visited the country until you’ve seen it. Its origins are unknown, though Lithuania has long maintained a tradition of carving crosses that express “both sorrow and hope.”

Burning Town–Centralia, Pennsylvania 

A must-see oddity on any northeast US road trip, a coal vein has been burning beneath this town for 46 years. You’ll know you’re close when you hit “undulating blacktop” on Route 61, and then you’ll see the ghost town with its “few families who refuse to leave, several cemeteries and the smoking strip mine where it all started.” If you’re not creeped out yet, it’s two hours to Philadelphia and the “haunted” Eastern State Penitentiary. 

Hallstatt Bone House–Hallstatt, Austria 

Tight for space, for hundreds of years some Austrian graveyards gained new ground by burying and then exhuming bodies, painting the skeletal remains and arranging them in a beinhaus. Centuries of bones—the newest decorated skull, gold tooth still intact, dates only to 1983—can be seen in the Hallstatt chapel and while it is “in no way sterilized, it is not tasteless either.” 

Okefenokee Swamp–Waycross, Georgia 

The Seminoles’ impenetrable “Land of Trembling Earth” still makes visitors tremble with fear. No one can confirm—or discount—the tales of swamp people, ghosts and larger-than-life supernatural beings, but visitors can confirm that the ancient Native American burial mound on Chesser Island is worth a visit. If it’s live things that scare you, go gator-spotting on one of the wildlife refuge’s boat tours.

Castlerigg–Keswick, England 

Locals prefer Castlerigg’s Cumbrian Druid formations to those at Stonehenge because you can “touch them, sit on them and appreciate how they’re set off by the dramatic backdrop” (perhaps also because it’s free). Visits can be “peaceful,” “oddly disturbing,” or “threatening, mystic and magical,” depending on the weather—and on whether you spot any of the bizarre light phenomena reported at the site.

Catacombs–Paris, France 

If you’re not faint of heart or claustrophobic, the morbid and dim catacombs have been a preferred place to beat the heat in the City of Light since the late eighteenth centruy. Besides walls of femurs and tibias, officials also “formed pictures, warnings and messages out of the bones, making the sight even more grotesque.”