The Strangest Place You’ve Ever Been
- September 14th, 2008 5:55 pm
One summer when I went to Europe, I had the pleasure of visiting the Catacombs beneath the city of Paris. I begged and begged to go there. I’d read about catacombs many of times, and something about them really lured my attention. Finally, we went. For me, the catacombs held a certain damp darkness that no place I had ever been had managed to share. It was both creepy and interesting. As far as the strangest or creepiest place that I’ve ever been, it pretty much ranks at the top. Being surrounded head to toe by bones stacked in particular manner was definitely something new.
I suppose the second strangest place that I’ve ever been was the official Anne Frank House. The hiding place in which she wrote her diary in Amsterdam. It was very haunting, and rather than truly enjoying the museum, I think I spent the majority of my time there in awe that I was there in the first place. I couldn’t quit questioning it, but I did love it. I hope to return one day.
The strangest local place I’ve ever been is to an abandoned house about thirty miles north of my home, like most abandoned small town homes is rumored to be haunted. The walls were covered with newspaper; the floors give way with the perfunctory creaking sound; and within a few feet there happens to be an Native American burial ground surrounded by a makeshift fence and marked with strange stones. Something about the house is just painful. The way the doors lead to nowhere, some of them on the second story opening up to the outside of the house without a single stair beneath them. It’s deep into the woods, and I’m not sure how any of my friends even found it in the first place. But it was absolutely terrifying.
Where/What is the strangest (or creepiest) place that you’ve ever been?
PS. Thank you to everyone that commented on my last entry. I deeply appreciate all of your comments, both the encouraging and the not so encouraging. It’s nice to dump my brain here. Even if after posting it, I sometimes regret it. I enjoy the comments and the interaction. Truly, I do. I like to listen to what people have to say even if it is via the written word. Thank you for taking the time to respond on even the most awkward of posts. I really like you guys.
September 14th, 2008 @ 6:12 pm
My hometown boasts a slave cemetery and it is out in the middle of the backwoods of Arkansas. You have to walk in on this narrow road surrounded my all kinds of creepy bushes. We of course went one night while in high school and there may or may not have been alcohol involved. Anyway…we get there only to realize that apparently people still like to be buried back in the creepy woods when we stumbled upon a fresh grave…but the horror movie scream that came from the woods was my cue to jet and never ever return!!!
Merediths last blog post..W.W. 8.10.08
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September 14th, 2008 @ 6:17 pm
hey! I’ve been there! Oh it makes me sad and happy at the same time to see that photo- I lost all my photos during a computer crash so anything from 05 and earlier is gone. It also makes me happy because it brought back so many wonderful memories of my trip to Paris.
Lindys last blog post..Yummy! Yummy! A curry in my tummy!!
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September 14th, 2008 @ 6:35 pm
I lived in an apartment that I truly believe was haunted. My roommate and I each thought the other was guilty of leaving the doors on the oven, fridge and microwave all the time, but when we came home from a weekend away and they were all open, it freaked us out. We also had a clock, with no battery that would just jump time randomly. I couldn’t get out of that apartment fast enough. Especially when furniture started moving around.
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September 14th, 2008 @ 6:47 pm
I may have blocked the strangest place out of my mind. I have been some places that are interesting. My hometown church had a catacombs. It was not as eerie as the one you visited in Paris. Another unique spot was an abandoned Frank Lloyd Wright house. When I was young , my family saw an abandoned Ford factory in the Upper Prnisula of Michigan.
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September 14th, 2008 @ 6:51 pm
I was at the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam, too. It’s a surreal experience – especially after readying her diary and imagining the movie star photos taped to the walls and the stairway.
I would have to have that uppermost on my list.
Rees last blog post..Something to Read
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September 14th, 2008 @ 7:23 pm
In thailand I went to a buddhist temple. It was beautiful and I actually got a chance to sit and chat with a sweet old buddhist nun. Im not buddhist, and I was amazed at her willingness to discuss her religion with me. ANYWAY, later we toured the temple enclosure, and there was a cave that had one of their gods carved over the entrance. The carving in itself was creepy, leering smile, menacing eyes. We went inside and there were several lifesized wax sculptures of people..I have no idea what they were sup[posed to be. It was almost suffocatingly dark, the only light came from candles. There were tunnels dug back farther into the caves, where people apparently crawled to pray. I have never felt so disturbed in my life. It was…just weird. I cant explain it very well. The feeling was somewhat stifling. I had goosebumps over my entire body for no apparent reason, other than tht i was creeped out.
bekahs last blog post..To Add to My Royalty…And My Shame
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September 14th, 2008 @ 7:34 pm
Two places.
One Haunted house in Gettysburg. It was SOOOO scary! There was graffiti on walls, holes in walls, and a supposed little boy who died there, still haunts it. It was a wet, cold inside- and almost foggy. Straight out of a movie really.
Secondly, I visited the Pyramids in Teotihuacan, Mexico. It was creepy! I enjoyed the history, and the Astrology of the place… but for some reason, it was just creepy!!!
okay- and TJ. TJ itself is just weird. Lost-Homeless Dogs, Painted donkeys, donkey SHOWS, Revolucion street, Men older than my Dad hitting on me ( I was 14) “hand made” tacos…. need I say more?
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September 14th, 2008 @ 7:35 pm
okay- one more- I went to the Friday Kahlo house, and got to see the bed she would lay in, and paint her self portraits. There is/was a mirror on the top (she slept in the bottom of a bunk bed) of the bed, and she would lay there and paint herself! It was a CRAZY house- If you can’t tell by my last entry- I love Mexican History!
Kalyns last blog post..My Lil’ Mexican
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September 14th, 2008 @ 7:36 pm
AHAHAHAHAHAHA… okay, last one- I just noticed what my last entry title was. THIS WAS NOT ON PURPOSE!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA….
Kalyns last blog post..My Lil’ Mexican
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September 14th, 2008 @ 7:37 pm
I, for one, like you, too.
lceels last blog post..100 Word Challenge – twist – but no orgy
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September 14th, 2008 @ 8:23 pm
I’ve never been anywhere. Hmph.
Marias last blog post..A Story of Abandonment: The Response
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September 14th, 2008 @ 8:35 pm
that is a good question, i can not think of a place….. but now i am thinking
feeners last blog post..Phantom gate
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September 14th, 2008 @ 9:46 pm
I think I need to get out more. I really can’t think of anyplace I’ve been that was that creepy. Although the bat in my bedroom when we were on vacation in Mazatalan when I was five was pretty damn freaky.
Jenn @ Juggling Lifes last blog post..I Am . . . The Question-Talker
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September 14th, 2008 @ 9:48 pm
Yeah, Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam was surreal. Other places that can be really chilling are caves. I took the wild tour at Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. I can’t imagine doing something like that without the guide. We were circling ourselves and I had no idea. Really freaky! And with the lights out, even more freaky.
ReformingGeeks last blog post..Waiting for IKE
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September 14th, 2008 @ 9:52 pm
ooh we visited the Catacombs in Rome- very creepy. We also visited the Capuchin Crypt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capuchin_Crypt THAT was really creepy, but very cool.
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September 15th, 2008 @ 12:08 am
I loved the catacombs! I love Anne Frank, and I’ve been dying to go there. Did it seem really small to you? Or you main impression?
britts last blog post..Lovely Abby
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September 15th, 2008 @ 12:22 am
I want to visit Auschwitz to honor all who died there. Your choices don’t seem so odd to me. I’ll skip any catacombs tho. I’d love to see the caves at Lasceaux instead.
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September 15th, 2008 @ 8:23 am
I love the Anne Frank house. Have you ever seen Whoopi Goldberg’s really early stand-up, when she “plays” (”is” is a better verb) a junkie who visits Amsterdam?
Ellies last blog post..W-O-R-K
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September 15th, 2008 @ 8:59 am
Luckily (or not as the case may be) I’ve never been to anywhere really creepy.
Did you see that movie, catacombs? Now that was creepy.
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September 15th, 2008 @ 10:07 am
I’ve been to the catacombs, and it is a place like no other.
I’ve also been to Pompeii, which is another kind of creepy but amazing place.
That house you mentioned in the woods sounds scary.
I can’t think of anything local that has me freaked out.
Great post! Loved it.
Rheas last blog post..Black Hockey Jesus
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September 15th, 2008 @ 11:37 am
Yeah, the Anne Frank house is amazing. I thought that they really did a good job of preserving the history of the house while also providing an exceptional ‘museum’ experience – multimedia displays contrasting with roped-off areas of the house that you could see but not explore. It tops my list of awe-inspiring places I’ve been, but not necessarily ‘creepy’.
goodfathers last blog post..Panda
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September 15th, 2008 @ 11:59 am
Around the time The Blair Witch Project came out, I was in highschool, and my friends and I thought it would be fun to visit Bingham Hill Cemetery…. a cemetery past the citys large reservoir in a very small town. Of course, we went at night, and as soon as we had all gotten out of the car, (it was off, the lights were off, the keys were with me) the lights turned on by themselves! I screamed, we all ran back to the car and got out of there as fast as we could! Weird note….the switch for the headlights was off when I got back in the drivers seat.
Leslies last blog post..Nevada
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September 15th, 2008 @ 12:05 pm
Probably the creepiest place I’ve been was when I went to Mammoth Cave as a kid (I’m from Kentucky). There’s one part of the tour where they take you deep into the cave, and turn off all their flashlights. It is PITCH. BLACK. but you still know there’s about a hundred people surrounding you, completely quiet. Because nobody could say anything, it was that scary.
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September 15th, 2008 @ 1:35 pm
The creepiest place I’ve ever been to was Carlsbad Caverns, in New Mexico. Granted, most people wouldn’t find it creepy, but I freak out when I get in little, confined spaces like that, so it wasn’t all that pleasant for me.
My grandparents’ current house is about 30 feet away from the house that my dad and uncle were born in and grew up in, and that is one strange place to be in. It’s just this tiny, dirty, rotting old house, but when my brother and i were younger, we would sneak in there and dig through all the old piles of junk and find some really cool stuff that my grandparents just forgot were in there. But it is a very strange place. I think the porch has completely rotted through, now, and heaven help my grandfolks if ever there’s a fire in there!
Those catacombs sound amazing, by the way. I’d love to go there sometime!
~Brea
Brea in Texass last blog post..Would you vote for him after reading this?
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September 15th, 2008 @ 2:59 pm
Apart from a few places in Scotland that were rumoured to be haunted, I think one of the strangest places I have been to is The Winchester Mystery House. It is like the house you described, but I think this place is 7 stories high. It’s intriguing, eerie and bizarre all-in-one. It’s in California.
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September 15th, 2008 @ 5:29 pm
Creepiest place…hmm…I’d have to say an abandoned house when I was about 16. I went with a bunch of friends who said they’d heard it was haunted. It was incredibly dark, the house was in a remote location down a long winding road surrounded by bushes. It was very creepy at the time.
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September 15th, 2008 @ 8:25 pm
Loved the catacombs in Paris! Whenever anyone I know is going there, I insist they visit, because it is truly amazing. As a kid, we lived in an big old house built in the mid 1800s. We only lived there for two years, but I don’t think I got a good night’s sleep the entire time we lived there. I have a bunch of scary stories from that house, but just thinking about it gives me the willies. Bar none, the creepiest place I’ve ever been.
Caras last blog post..Forever
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September 15th, 2008 @ 9:23 pm
I think the catacombs was one of my memorable moments of my entire time studying aboard. Weird yes, but as you say, you can hardly describe what it is like. Oh yeah, and it went on forever!
Now I’m missing Paris…
anti-supermoms last blog post..intervention
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September 16th, 2008 @ 10:20 pm
I don’t think I have ever been to a creepy place to warrant the creepiest place I have ever been.. man my life is boring..
and now that I said the word warrant all I have in my head is the song Cherry Pie.. shoot me.
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September 17th, 2008 @ 11:07 am
I felt the exact same way about Anne Frank’s house. A strange heavy feeling…thanks for sharing.
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January 9th, 2009 @ 8:55 pm
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