Looking for the spookiest places on the planet? Places where haunts hang out and the occult is cool? Consider these three spooky cities around the globe:
New Orleans is heralded as America’s Most Haunted City, and for good reason. This is the once – and some say present – home to Marie Laveau, the Crescent City’s famed Voodoo Queen. Her grave is reputedly at St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, where some devotees to this day (illegally, we might add) pay homage by writing three x’s on the side of her above-ground tomb. Virtually all the tombs in this below sea level city are above ground. The New Orleans Convention & Visitors Bureau suggests taking one of a number of cemetery tours. The scarescape is suffused with haunted houses, especially this time of year. But if you’re in search of the real thing the CVB suggests The Haunted Mortuary. Folks swear it houses no less than nine resident ghosts.
Bucharest, Romania is the jumping off spot for consummate vampire tours. Land in Bucharest and drive to the Snagov Monastery. That’s where legend has it Vlad was buried after his assassination. That’s Vlad, as in Vlad the Impaler, the guy who helped inspire the Dracula legend. Later, tour Poienari Fortress, Vlad’s precipitous citadel. As they say, wear comfortable shoes. It boasts more than 1,000 steps.
The city that gave you Marley’s Ghost and scores of beheaded beings issues one of the world’s very best ghost walks. The Original London Ghost Walk is a ghoulish gem, an expertly-led perambulation through the one of the City of London’s most harrowing and haunted precincts. The folks who run the tour take you through the churchyard where the famed She-Wolfe of France “performs a perpetual penance” for a long-past act of infamy. Farther on visit the spot where Sir William Wallace (a.k.a. Brave Heart) was hanged, drawn and quartered. The ghost stories are legion in London. This is just the start.
(Images: Rosemary McKevitt, borderlys)
