Holy Ground

Poveglia is an island in the South Lagoon,over five kilometres from Venice,Italy.But instead of being a place of beauty,the island is not only regarded as one of the most haunted locations on the planet,but also one of the most evil places in the world.Poveglia was originally a self-governing island hundreds of years ago,before being taken by Italy.When the black plague swept over the country,Poveglia was the place where the dead bodies and even those who were still alive were dumped.Men,women,children...all left to die in agony.They were put into "plague pits" were hundreds of or even thousands of bodies and still-living victims of the disease were thrown in and either buried,burned or just left in the open to rot.As if the story is not disturbing enough,it gets worse.Centuries later,in 1922,the island became home to a psychiatric hospital complete with a large and very impressive bell tower.Soon after,the patients of the hospital began to report that they would see ghosts of plague victims and that they would be kept up at night hearing the tortured wails of the suffering spirits.Because they were already considered mad by the hospital staff,these complaints were ignored.In addition to these,one doctor decided to make a name for himself by experimenting on his patients to find a cure for insanity, using his own invented therapies.Those patients were taken to the bell tower and tortured.According to the legend,after many years of performing these immoral acts,the doctor began to see the tortured plague spirits himself.It is said that the spirits led him to the bell tower where he jumped to the grounds below.The fall did not kill him,according to a nurse who witnessed the event,but she related that as he lay on the ground in pain,a mist came up out of the ground and choked him to death.After that,the hospital closed down.Even so,there are rumores that the tower's bell can be heard across the bay on a still night.Later,the island was sold but the owner abandoned it in the 1960's and was the last person to try and live there.A family recently sought to buy the island and build a holiday home on it but they left the first night there and refused to comment on what happened.Several psychics have also visited the island and the abandoned hospital,but all of them left scared to death of what they had sensed there.In addition to this,many Venetians are fearful of speaking about such a place.Because of the piles of the dead,they believe that the people who died there reached all the way to hell.The hospital and the crematorium still stands.The island is used for farming only and no tourists are permitted there at any time.You may not believe in ghosts,but there's something about this island that will definitely make you believe in something.

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