In the north of Italy, in the Venetian lagoon near the island of Lido, there is the abandoned Poveglia island. Once it was built up with buildings and people lived there, but after a whole series of deaths and misfortunes, Italians began to avoid the island, located just two nautical miles from the heart of Venice - the Grand Canal.
From a distance Poveglia seems cozy and inhabited: this is emphasized by the lush greenery of the trees, and the embankment, and the graceful spire of the church bell tower. But as soon as a person steps on the island, he is seized by horror and confusion. Even those who know nothing about Poveglia feel discomfort on the island, what can we say about those who are familiar with the bloody and mysterious history of this corner of Italy.
The island was first mentioned in the chronicles of 421, when the inhabitants of Padua and Este fled to it, fleeing the invasion of the barbarians. 900 years later, fortifications were erected on Poveglia, which have survived to this day. Then the authorities of Venice tried to give the island to the monks and sell it on favorable terms, but all was in vain - for some reason, no one was willing to live there.
For more than a century, this small piece of Venetian land has been abandoned, deserted and unclaimed. Everything changed when Europe was covered by the plague. It was then that they remembered Poveglia: seriously ill people were brought to the island in order to fence off the healthy inhabitants of Venice.
Promotional video:
To minimize the risk, their families were brought along with the infected, even if they did not show signs of illness. Sending to Povelya meant inevitable death in agony. Often the bodies of the dead were piled with the living in common grave pits and burned.
The Venetians claim that Poveglia's lush vegetation is rooted in the ashes of countless human remains - up to 160,000 people have died on the island. The souls of many of the deceased seemed to have turned into ghosts, with which the island is now overflowing.
The island's grim reputation is compounded by tales of gruesome experiments allegedly carried out by patients in a psychiatric clinic that existed from 1922 to 1968. According to some reports, all the experiments on the patients were directed by the chief physician of this hospital, who, in the end, went mad himself and committed suicide by jumping from the bell tower. In this regard, researchers of the paranormal activities call the island one of the most terrible places on Earth.
This island is called differently: "the gates of hell", "the haven of lost souls", "dump out of pure fear." The Venetians are doing everything possible to disprove the terrible rumors about Poveglia and when asked about the island they only smile sweetly, saying that this is a great place to relax or set up a fashionable resort.
However, neither locals nor vacationers from other parts of Italy are in a hurry to land on the shores of the Poveglia, since most Italians are extremely superstitious. But it is possible that rumors that Poveglia is full of ghosts that can drive anyone crazy, still have grounds.
Today's Poveglia Island is a gloomy place with dilapidated houses, dilapidated stone staircases and thickets of wild grapes. No one has lived on the island since 1968, when the last person left the building of the psychiatric clinic.
In 2014, the Italian government decided to lease the island for 99 years. It is assumed that the hospital building will be converted into a hotel. And lovers of mysticism, who want to "tickle their nerves", will be able to spend the night visiting the ghosts.