Cortijo Jurado, Spain
Source: Flickr.com
An abandoned mansion on a highway outside of Málaga, this Andalusian haunted house was built by a wealthy family in the 19th century. It is said that the family kidnapped teenage girls and young women and brought them to secret chambers in the basement for torture and murder. Some people report that they still hear the girls screaming when they visit the ragged property.
Source: Flickr.com
Source: Flickr.com
Sedlec Ossuary, Czech Republic
Source: Flickr.com
In the lower level of Gothic church set in the center of a cemetery, the ossuary at Sedlec contains the bones of around 50,000 people. Elaborate arrangements of bones and skulls wind up the walls and across the ceilings of this weird chapel, which is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Source: Flickr.com
Source: Flickr.com
Bran Castle in Transylvania, Romania
Source: Flickr.com
This is “Dracula’s castle,” or at least it has become so in the modern imagination of Romanian tourists. The original fortress here was built in 1212, but was then destroyed by Mongolian warriors under the command of Genghis Khan. The current stronghold went up in the late 1300s and has watched over this corner of Transylvania ever since.
Although Bram Stoker, the Dracula author, never visited Romania, some scholars believe he based his famous vampire’s residence on a wood carving of the Bran Castle in the 1865 book Transylvania: Its Product and Its People. The Bran Castle certainly fits Stoker’s description of “a vast ruined castle, from whose tall black windows came no ray of light, and whose broken battlements showed a jagged line against the sky.”
Source: Flickr.com
Source: Flickr.com
