Autumn is the season that ushers in our link with the nether-realms. It is were the dark things lurk and wait for this season to break out and linger amongst us mere mortals. For the next month and a half there is truly magic in the air that can be felt through the smokey spices that fill our nostrils on a nice evening's jaunt.
Every year I get excited and poetic over the Halloween season. Heck, it's really the only time I post on this blog consecutively. It's the season that sparks my imagination the most and takes us to spooky dark places.
On the note of Spooky Dark Places, I'm going to play a little game. I'm going to pretend I own a TARDIS and can travel anywhere in the world and could visit some of the more creepy locations of the world. I'll keep the settings at modern day in case I would accidentally pop in some puritanical time frame where I'd be burned at the stake for being a witch, I'll do this as a modern day tourist.
Here I go! First stop.......
1. The Bloody Tower of London - This imposing castle-like structure is currently the home of England's crown jewels as well as some government offices that still operate there. It is also one of the main tourist attractions of the UK. One thing the tour guides (or Beefeater's as they are affectionately called) love to speak about are the numerous amount of ghosts that lurk about the place. For hundreds of years prior to it being full of tourists, it was full of prisoners as the tower was the main prison of England. And many a soul fell to the blade there. It is said the place is haunted by the ghosts of Anne Boleyn, Roman soldiers, two young princes and many more. Definitely a ghoulish place to visit.
2. Winchester Mystery House - Wealthy Victorian whack-job and widow of the Winchester gun founder, Sarah Winchester, took the advice of a medium who instructed her to build a house that never ends its construction to house all of the spirits of people killed by the Winchester rifle. Suffice it to say, the place is one big, odd mess of a building. Hallways and staircases leading nowhere, secret rooms and paranormal activity are the main architectural flavor of the place.
3. Island of Dolls (Isla de las Munecas) - What's more disturbing than one of those little, lifeless, plastic baby dolls staring at you from across a room with its cold, dead eyes? How about hundreds of them staring at you? Now forget about the room and place yourself on a small island in a canal system just south of mexico. Now pretend it's not daytime, it's night. There's also a tragic story behind the place that involves a dead girl. There you go.
4. Highgate Cemetery - This old, London, cemetery is crawling with overgrown foliage and decaying tombstones. There are many stories of ghosts lurking about and even a tale of a vampire who calls the hallowed ground home. On a more nerdy than spooky note: Author Douglas Adams is buried here too.
5. The Church of Bones - Zoinks and Zoinks again! An entire church in Bohemia that has a main decor of human bones that have been vigil for hundreds of years. It doesn't get much creepier than that! In more geekier news, this location was used as the main villain's lair in the movie adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons.
There are many other places that we could journey to as well that are notoriously macabre. Gettysburg National Park, The catacombs of Paris as well as many of the isolated and long forgotten prisons and insane asylums that dot the world could all qualify as well. But, I only have so much time to dream and have to start getting my autumn and Halloween plans laid out. So I'm parking the TARDIS back in the garage and will enjoy a smokey, spice laden pumpkin ale and lick my wounds of the current Packer loss.
Until next time, stay vertical and don't wake the dead....yet.
Zangz.
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