9 Creepy Destinations Across The “Old Continent”

Published October 28, 2015
Updated August 15, 2019

The so-called Old Continent could just as easily be called the "Creepy Continent." After you check out these spots, you'll understand why.

Creepy Europe

Source: Flickr.com

The heavy chains of superstition weigh on European history like the shackles of a Dickensian ghost. When a place is continuously inhabited for thousands of years, a few spooky stories will eventually get lodged into the collective memory. Add to these a handful of cults that build their chapels with bones and skulls, and the result is a pretty creepy continent. Here are nine European sites that will make your hair stand on end.

The Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo, Italy

The Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo

Source: Flickr.com

Eight thousand corpses populate this Sicilian city of the dead, including 1,200 mummies. Originally a catacomb for friars of the Capuchin monastic order, the process of preserving the bodies, through drying them and embalming techniques, attracted the attention of local elites. Dressed in their Sunday best, the residents here await the final resurrection alongside compatriots from the 16th to 20th centuries.

Creepy Europe Skeletons Italy

Source: Flickr.com

Creepy Europe Palermo Crypt

Source: Flickr.com

Church of Ghosts, Czech Republic

Church of Ghosts

Source: Flickr.com

In the late 1960s, part of the church of St. Georges collapsed during a funeral in the small town of Lukova, Czech Republic. Afterwards, the building was condemned and neglected. The church, though, has received new “life” after local artist Jakub Hadrava filled the pews with a congregation of spectral parishioners. The wraiths are made of plaster, and some have internal lighting to up the freak-out factor.

Creepy Europe Ghost Church

Source: Flickr.com

Creepy Europe Ghost Pews

Source: Flickr.com

The Hallstatt Bonehouse, Austria

The Hallstatt Bonehouse

Source: Flickr.com

Cinched between steep hills and a large lake, the town of Hallstatt has never had much space for a cemetery. Nearly 900 years ago, the community began exhuming the dead every ten or fifteen years and moving the skeletal remains to the “bonehouse,” beinhaus in German, in the chapel of St. Michael. Today, over 600 hand-painted skulls line the walls of the chapel, each decorated with leaves or flowers, the name of the diseased, and the year of death.

Creepy Europe Hallstatt Bonehouse

Source: Flickr.com

Creepy Europe Bone House

Source: Flickr.com

author
John
author
John has been writing for All That Is Interesting since 2014 and now lives in Madrid, Spain, where he writes and consults on international development projects in East Africa.
editor
John Kuroski
editor
John Kuroski is the editorial director of All That's Interesting. He graduated from New York University with a degree in history, earning a place in the Phi Alpha Theta honor society for history students. An editor at All That's Interesting since 2015, his areas of interest include modern history and true crime.