A quarantine station, a dumping ground for plague victims, more recently a mental hospital — the tiny island of Poveglia in the Venice Lagoon has served many unpleasant purposes over the years, but today it stands empty, a crumbling collection of abandoned buildings and weeds run riot just two miles from the glittering palaces of the Grand Canal. Legends and rumors about Poveglia are nearly as pervasive as the weeds, and they read like a horror story: that so many people were burned and buried there during the black plague that the soil is 50% human ash; that local fishermen give the island a wide berth for fear of netting the wave-polished bones of ancestors; that the psychiatrist who ran the mental hospital was a butcher and torturer who went mad from guilt and threw himself from the island’s belltower, only to survive the fall and be strangled by a “ghostly mist” that emerged from the ground.
Weary of an island in their beloved lagoon being characterized as a “festering blemish … the waves reluctantly lapping its darkened shores” (from a book called TRUE Hauntings from Around the World, emphasis not mine) or “nothing more than a cesspool of pure dread” (according to the hyperbolic host of a show called Ghost Adventures), Venetians have done what they can to tamp down overheated rumors about Poveglia. They deny being frightened of the place and tend not to mention the plague pits or mental hospital when discussing the island’s history; a recent article in Venice magazine claimed that the institutional ruins which dominate Poveglia were nothing more than a rest home for the elderly.
But as long as the island remains tantalizingly off-limits to tourists and crammed with rotting buildings that are just a gondola ride from some of Europe’s priciest real estate, rumors will keep flying and people will keep telling scary stories about it. I wanted to sort out the truth from the rumors, the legends from the dismissive shrugs of the locals. In Venice for five days to write about the city for mental_floss (the first installment is here), I couldn’t pass up exploring the “island of terror.” What I found there was both stranger and more innocuous than anything I had heard.
As it turns out, getting to Poveglia isn’t as easy as it sounds. While upwards of three million people descend upon Venice and a few of the more touristy resort islands around it each year, virtually no one goes to Poveglia. According to most travel guides, the island is “not visitable,” and the idea of flagging down a water taxi on the Grand Canal and asking for a ride to a far-flung island of abandoned buildings was laughable. (People have tried it; it doesn’t work.) It took a few days to find a boat operator who would agree to take me there, and while it wasn’t cheap, it included a whole day on the lagoon during which I could visit a few other islands too, if I wanted, and it even included lunch, cooked on a propane burner right on the boat.
Approaching the island, the first thing you see is the bell tower. It’s the most visible and also one of the oldest structures on the island, the only remnant of a 12th-century church that was abandoned and destroyed hundreds of years ago. The tower was turned into a lighthouse in the 18th century, and now serves no purpose other than as a landmark (unless you’re a suicidal, possibly-legendary mad doctor).
Next you see the island’s octagonal battlement, known as “the octagon,” which was built in the 14th century to repel Genoese invaders. (The Genoese and Venetians had a bloody rivalry for centuries.) In addition to the countless others who are supposed to have met their untimely ends on Poveglia, the octagon was used by English soldiers during the Napoleonic wars to ambush French commandos. Prisoners were taken ashore and burned (this “almost became a habit,” according to one history book) and — again, this is a rumor — destroyed French ships still decorate the bottom of the lagoon around the octagon.
We navigate to one side of the octagon and come into a little canal, where the mental hospital is revealed behind a stand of trees. (The building may have served other purposes, but I can only describe it as what it looks like — somewhere insane people are incarcerated.) We slide up to a landing, tie the boat to a strut of the mental hospital and hop ashore. That’s the octagon on the left, the hospital on the right.
The place strikes me as anything but a “cesspool of dread.” Maybe it’s the sun and the salty air and the teal water everywhere, but even covered with abandoned buildings, it doesn’t seem creepy in the least. (Of course, I hadn’t gone inside them yet — past the fences and the warning signs — so the jury was still out.) I found one local history book that confirmed the island’s use as not a retirement home exactly, but as an institution used to house “aged indigents,” who I suppose in America would be better known as old homeless people. Still, the picture this book paints of their lives on Poveglia seemed more or less consistent with my cheerful first impressions:
Aged people, who were to be seen sunning themselves happily upon its lawns, or on aged ships, still laid up in a neighboring channel, pitifully streaked with rust and salt, their only attendants the skeleton crews who maintain their engines …
The aged indigent home was abandoned in 1968 and the island has been empty ever since. Twenty years ago, work crews hastily erected scaffolding all along the main buildings’ frontage — not to fix them up, my guide told me, but merely to delay their falling down. Oh, and this photo puts to rest another rumor: that fishermen won’t go near Poveglia. Those sticks placed at intervals along the concrete below — those are fishing nets.
But the indigent home was merely the last of Poveglia’s institutional incarnations. Its first was as a lazaretto, a quarantine island for maritime travelers, one of three in the Venice lagoon. Lazaretto Vecchio, just a stone’s throw from Poveglia, opened in 1403, the first institution of its kind. Plague and disease were huge problems in the medieval world, especially in trading centers like Venice. But Venice had some of the strictest sanitary laws anywhere, and even though they didn’t understand how germs and infections worked, they knew that isolating sick travelers was an effective way to prevent or lessen the severity of outbreaks. It was Venice that coined the term quarantine, which is derived from the duration travelers were required to stay at a lazaretto before they could be issued a clean bill of health and continue on their way — forty days. Quaranta giorni.
But confinement in Poveglia’s lazaretto wasn’t always, or even usually, a death sentence. It was more like purgatory: boring, though not necessarily unpleasant. Most wayfarers had their own room, sometimes even their own little apartment. They were fed well and drank together and they could send and receive mail (though outgoing letters were, according to an 1831 inmate of Poveglia’s lazaretto, “stabbed, sprinkled with vinegar, and fumigated” before leaving the island).
But during the full fury of a plague outbreak, of which Venice underwent many, there’s little doubt that the lazarettos tuned from Purgatory into Hell. Venice considered itself lucky that, thanks in part to its relatively strict sanitation laws, it lost merely a third of its population during one 16th century outbreak. (The death toll on the mainland of Italy was, by comparison, far worse.) Panicked officials shipped anyone displaying symptoms of plague, be they commoners or nobility, off to the lazarettos. Doctors wore long-nosed masks stuffed with herbs in an attempt to filter sickness from the air they breathed.
During the worst outbreaks, the islands were quickly overrun with the dead and dying, who were hastily shoveled into grave pits, and when those were full, burned. There are surely such grave pits on Poveglia, though their locations are unmarked and unknown. Local lore holds that the part of the island traditionally used for growing food held most of the bodies.
Work crews on nearby Lazaretto Vecchio were digging the foundation for a new museum when they came across one such grave pit, filled with the remains of more than 1,500 plague victims.
Archaeologists immediately set to work examining the grisly find, and discovered something even more shocking: a vampire. Which is to say, someone who was thought to be a vampire back in the 16th century. The tip off: there was a brick shoved between its teeth, which it was believed would starve the vampire, better known in historical parlance as a shroud-eater.
As far as bricks and vampires go, there’s a sound, albeit medieval chain of logic at work here. An MSNBC article about the vampire’s discovery explains:
During epidemics, mass graves were often reopened to bury fresh corpses and diggers would chance upon older bodies that were bloated, with blood seeping out of their mouth and with an inexplicable hole in the shroud used to cover their face.
“These characteristics are all tied to the decomposition of bodies,” Borrini said. “But they saw a fat, dead person, full of blood and with a hole in the shroud, so they would say: ‘This guy is alive, he’s drinking blood and eating his shroud.’”
Modern forensic science shows the bloating is caused by a buildup of gases, while fluid seeping from the mouth is pushed up by decomposing organs, Borrini said. The shroud would have been consumed by bacteria found in the mouth area, he said. At the time however, what passed for scientific texts taught that “shroud-eaters” were vampires who fed on the cloth and cast a spell that would spread the plague in order to increase their ranks.
To kill the undead creatures, the stake-in-the-heart method popularized by later literature was not enough: A stone or brick had to be forced into the vampire’s mouth so that it would starve to death, Borrini said.
Imagine, then, what horrors may lie waiting to be discovered in Poveglia’s plague pits, which remain unexplored. Estimates that sound impossible but which I’ve seen on a number of websites, in a book and on that stupid episode of Ghost Adventures place the number of people who were burned or buried here in the hundreds of thousands. Looking at the numbers, I suppose it’s possible: in just the plague of 1576 alone, Venice lost 50,000 people (which, creepily, is the current population of Venice) — and there were at least twenty-two outbreaks of plague in the two hundred years before that. If that sounds staggering, unimaginable even, it seemed so to Venetians of the middle ages, as well. Here’s how a 14th century Italian named Giovanni Bocaccio described it:
The condition of the people was pitiable to behold. They sickened by the thousands daily, and died unattended and without help. Many died in the open street, others dying in their houses, made it known by the stench of their rotting bodies. Consecrated churchyards did not suffice for the burial of the vast multitude of bodies, which were heaped by the hundreds in vast trenches, like goods in a ships hold and covered with a little earth.
So yeah, I think it’s entirely believable that Poveglia’s soil is littered with bones. It’s entirely common. What’s uncommon is to know where they are — to be able to say yes, that island — because such were the sanitary laws of Venice that there was actually a place for the sick to go, to be quarantined, and to die.
This jungly part of the island, most recently a small vineyard, is where the pits are thought most likely to be. And speaking of burning things, looks like someone thought this was a good spot for a little campfire action. Who wants a hot dog?
Okay, back to the insane asylum. Which is — yes — what was built here in 1922. For some reason, the wikipedia page on Poveglia claims that “the institution in question was not a mental hospital,” which is total bunko. How do I know, despite the controversy, that at least part of this place housed mental patients?
Simple: I found the sign.
Also, if you poke around in the bushes a little, you’ll find all the bars that used to be on the windows. (I assume they weren’t there to keep burglars out, or old people in.)
What’s more, the place is very, very institutional feeling, from the drab paint on the peeling walls to the stacks of beds and bedframes I found in several rooms.
There’s a little chapel inside the hospital, too, its walls greening with mold, pews broken by vandals. It seems like something you’d only need on an island whose residents were not allowed to leave.
The boundary between indoor and outdoor no longer means much here. There are vines growing into every window, and ceilings collapsed into piles of beams and roofing tiles that are themselves slowly being covered with vegetation.
Despite all this apparent creepiness, I never felt ill at ease while picking through the ruins of Poveglia. It was a bit like I imagine exploring the ruins of Mayan temples would be — more like you’re in a strange kind of park than a horror movie.
The floor of one room was totally covered, a half-inch thick in some places, with the torn-out pages of Italian books.
Some of the more accessible rooms had been spray-painted with graffiti — evidence, rumor has it, of “raves in the nineties.”
Here’s a clever play on words.
Despite the grime and debris that seemed to cover everything — or perhaps because of it — little details stuck out, like the tile pattern in this once-handsome floor.
Or this door’s peeling paint.
There was plenty of evidence around that this had been a large institutional operation responsible for the care and feeding of lots of people — like this industrial kitchen.
These must have been some of the first electric washing machines available.
I have no idea what this was for, but it looks serious.
This was called il manglia or “the mangler,” used for wringing out wet sheets and clothes.
Behind the main hospital building were a few smaller structures that looked like they might’ve been staff housing. (Perhaps it belonged to the mad doctor himself.) The underbrush had closed around this building so aggressively that I almost didn’t see it.
Around the side of the house was this classy granite clawfoot tub. I want one!
Inside the house were a few partially-furnished rooms with sofas moldering in corners and curtains still in the windows. This trunk seemed an especially promising find — though it was, unfortunately, empty.
This stairwell was in a building filled with sinister-looking industrial equipment. Through the window is the canal and the octagon beyond it.
It led to a roof, where these little observation towers look out onto the lagoon, and given this view, I couldn’t help but be cheered. It was strange: if any place in the world was haunted, this place was. But regardless of its history as a burial ground and quarantine hospital and insane asylum and lord knows what else, the weather and the rampant greenery made it feel like a happy place, somewhere I wouldn’t mind being stuck for a few weeks, if it were the 16th century and I was suspected of carrying the plague.
Someplace, even, where you might stop for a picnic. Which, in fact, is exactly what I did. When I’d finished exploring the island and returned to the boat, I found that my guide, who’d stayed with the boat while I was gone, had set out a table and prepared a wonderful Venetian feast: sauteed polpo, or octopus, polenta with prawns, a nice fritto mixto, and a risotto made with stinging nettles that she had harvested from the underbrush growing into the windows of the abandoned mental asylum — all prepared on a single propane-fired hotplate, and followed up with desert wine and some traditional almond cookies. Honestly, it was one of the best meals I had of the five days I was in Venice.
All in all, not a bad way to spend an afternoon on the most haunted island in Italy.
Check out all the Strange Geographies columns here.
Prints and high-resolution digital downloads of photos from this essay are here.
Comments (86)
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Holy cow! When were you in Italy!? If you’re still in Italy, let me know and I’ll buy you a piadina! I live 45 minutes from Venice near to Bologna!
posted by Kate on 5-10-2010 at 2:21 am
Amazing article- I absolutely loved it! While I believe in ghosts, and that ghosts are likely there (well, anywhere really) those “Ghost Adventures” guys were idiots- wearing those long-nosed masks and screaming out insults at the dead.
Anyway, your photos were absoutely glorious. I must go there someday. As unpleasant as the history is, that is some absolutely gorgeous scenery, and I’d sell a kidney or maybe an ovary to be able to visit there. You are quite lucky- especially to find someone to take you there. I’d hate to not find a boat and have to forage out on a kayak or something.
posted by Mindymoo on 5-10-2010 at 2:33 am
Great post. I throughly enjoyed it. I would have stayed for days to experience the full transition of night to day. Keep em comming twitter @stevegrimes
posted by Stevan Grimes on 5-10-2010 at 4:20 am
btw ransom, that “serious-looking” contraption in one of the pictures, was somehow a depressurizing tank. I could be wrong, but the tubing lining the top and bottom is the clue here, as with the double thick hatches.
posted by marcus on 5-10-2010 at 7:34 am
What a fantastic article! It’s pieces like this and the lost Soviet cities that cause me to incessantly bug my friends to frequent mental_floss in the almost obsessive way I do.
posted by Tom on 5-10-2010 at 7:56 am
What a fascinating article. The pictures are fantastic and worthy of acclaim. Thank you!
posted by Jerry on 5-10-2010 at 8:18 am
Great article! Very interesting.
posted by Chelsea on 5-10-2010 at 9:11 am
Wonderful article, I love the photos! I always look forward to Strange Geographies.
posted by Heather on 5-10-2010 at 9:36 am
It’s so sad to see buildings of such significance – both historical and aesthetic – in utter disrepair. These properties would serve invaluable as museums. Hell, I bet you would even get a few weddings there! Gorgeous pictures and fascination insights.
posted by amymast85 on 5-10-2010 at 10:17 am
Marcus – I was thinking it was a retort machine (for cooking canned goods to kill bacteria). I’m not sure if they had that capability back then, but it sure looks like one!
posted by Kathleen on 5-10-2010 at 10:29 am
Wow! Thanks, Ransom. Your articles & photos are awesome–especially the digging into history (and debunking of Wikipedia) that you do. Jealous of your job!
posted by Erin on 5-10-2010 at 10:35 am
Loved this. Thanks!
posted by Alison on 5-10-2010 at 10:37 am
I was hoping you opened the trunk… :)
My favorite pic was the room with the original roof gone and a tree limb roof covering it;my least favorite pic was the books all over the floor! GAH!
So glad you enjoyed yourself. I agree with Tom:this post and the hidden USSR cities are why I keep coming back (and tell my friends and students to do so as well!)
posted by Helenann on 5-10-2010 at 10:55 am
Ransom, dude. Very cool. You’re doing what National Geographic *used* to do, years ago. Do you need a tag-along during your adventures?? I’ll schlep your camera equipment or something.
posted by Steve C. on 5-10-2010 at 11:01 am
Great article. THANKS! I’ve eaten some good stinging nettles myself. It’s amazing how walking through them can be torture but eating them be a completely different experience.
posted by Kelsey on 5-10-2010 at 11:15 am
If I’m not mistaken, the mental institution was still in use back in 1989 – my husband was on a nearby island for the summer doing an art restoration course, and the students would visit the inmates on the island – I’ve got some old photos somewhere. I’ll let him add his own comments after I show him the article :)
posted by Jenuwefa on 5-10-2010 at 11:32 am
I’m really loving this series – the histories and the photos are all fantastic!
I wonder if this island was Neil Gaiman’s inspiration for his “Death in Venice” story (it’s part of his Sandman graphic novel series, the first story in Endless Nights). He wrote a story about an island near Venice that had ruins and was supposedly haunted, which the water-taxi drivers didn’t want to take visitors. In his story, the ruins are inhabited by Italian nobility that, through magic, are suspended in time and therefore are safe from the plague and time, using their ever-repeating day to party and feast like there’s no tomorrow (because there isn’t).
posted by Jina on 5-10-2010 at 11:43 am
Kathleen and Marcus- Looks like an ancient tanning bed!
posted by Sara in Al on 5-10-2010 at 12:43 pm
Wow! What a captivating story. The photos are beautiful. Thank you for sharing!
posted by Drea on 5-10-2010 at 12:44 pm
Another amazing article. The stairway photo is incredible, with the crumbing walls framing such a beautiful bit of water.
@Jina I just started reading the Sandman Series, now I can’t wait to get to that part!
posted by hockeyzombie on 5-10-2010 at 2:27 pm
“btw ransom, that “serious-looking†contraption in one of the pictures, was somehow a depressurizing tank. I could be wrong, but the tubing lining the top and bottom is the clue here, as with the double thick hatches.”
Looks like an autoclave to me.
posted by Troy H. on 5-10-2010 at 2:34 pm
The serious-looking contraption:
how about an iron lung, just to add to the institutional feel?
posted by 8rustystaples on 5-10-2010 at 4:36 pm
Really enjoyed this – thank you for sharing.
posted by Janet on 5-10-2010 at 5:05 pm
I’ll be in Italy this summer, including a few days in Venice. You have no idea how much I want to go to this island. I have a photographer friend going with us and if he reads this article, he’s going to demand that we find a way to get here.
Anyway, amazing work. Thank you for doing all of this.
posted by Tom on 5-10-2010 at 5:14 pm
These geographies need to come in book form. They are a great read/view.
posted by Todd on 5-10-2010 at 6:08 pm
A thumbs up to Todd and a nod of agreement. These would make an awesome read.
posted by bakedpotatoes on 5-10-2010 at 9:11 pm
Awesome article! I love all kinds of “urban exploration” and this is a great example! Definitely very cool!
posted by Kate H. on 5-10-2010 at 10:02 pm
Very cool. Like a European version of Alcatraz!
posted by papawow on 5-10-2010 at 10:42 pm
Great article, great pictures!
posted by shirleyfeeney on 5-10-2010 at 11:16 pm
Very cool! Love these articles and can’t wait to see more. By the way what are stinging nettles?
posted by Shoshanna on 5-10-2010 at 11:41 pm
I think the mystery machine could be an autoclave, that’s just a guess though.
posted by Jill H on 5-10-2010 at 11:56 pm
What a great article. I love exploring and appreciating history, its nice to see that others do too.
and yeah…that ghost adventured episode was ridiculous. they should have been quarantined
posted by Natasha on 5-11-2010 at 1:56 am
Another great one, Ransom.
I could hear the walls whispering to me.
posted by M. Forrest on 5-11-2010 at 2:07 am
Great pics! I agree with Marcus. That looks like it could be an old hyperbaric chamber.
posted by Sean P on 5-11-2010 at 2:22 am
It sort of reminds me of the settings for games like “Silent Hill” or “House of the Dead.” Although it looks quite charming in a way. The mass grave is freaky though.
posted by Kat on 5-11-2010 at 5:38 am
You really need to make a book with your Strange Geographies adventures!
posted by GH on 5-11-2010 at 7:56 am
These are fantastic pics!! Thanks for the post.
posted by JPM on 5-11-2010 at 9:47 am
Your posts are always my favorite. Keep up the awesome photos!!
posted by Christina on 5-11-2010 at 10:06 am
I agree with all the others who wish to have Strange Geographies in book form. That would be simply awesome!
posted by Lulu on 5-11-2010 at 10:27 am
Does this mean I get a free T-shirt…or an 8×10 like the last person that suggested where you should go in Venice? I suggested Poveglia for that article. I want something cool from MentalFloss! :) I am addicted to this site and can’t help but look at it EVERY DAY.
GREAT photos and historical digs. Loved it!!!
posted by Julie on 5-11-2010 at 10:48 am
thank you for this photo essay of composting civilization. beautiful.
posted by alison on 5-11-2010 at 11:08 am
Autoclave. For sterilizing larger items. Tubes were for steam.
posted by Steven on 5-11-2010 at 11:11 am
A guy I know was hitchhiking through France and decided to camp out near a big rock in a field beside the road. He slept like a king. The next day he set out again and discovered there was a nice little village right after the next bend in the road.
So he had an espresso a the local cafe and the waiter told him that everybody kept away from the place where he had set camp, because a few dozen (I forgot exactly how many) locals had been machine gunned down by the Nazis there during the war in retaliation for nearby resistance activity… they were massacred right in front of that big rock.
So much for the “should be haunted” theory, I guess.
I was once at Dubrovnik on the Adriatic on the other side from Venice, and I agree that it’s hard to have any creepy feelings in that kind of climate. Especially if you, like me, come from a country where the weather TRIES TO KILL YOU seven months a year!
Great article!
posted by R. Millhaps on 5-11-2010 at 3:55 pm
Fantastic piece; really nice work! Have you heard of the Brother Islands in New York City? They’re abandoned islands – one with the ruins of an old mental hospital – just off of Manhattan in the East River. Hard to believe they’re so close to the City and uninhabited, but true! North Brother Island has an eerie story too … http://northbrotherislan.blogspot.com/
posted by Mand M. on 5-16-2010 at 5:22 pm
I would never admit that I’d seen that Ghost Hunters episode if y’all hadn’t copped to it first It was a so bad; a train wreck you couldn’t look away from. This article on the other hand, it’s my favorite you’ve done so far. The pictures are breathtaking. Lovely lovely job.
posted by Mojimay on 5-16-2010 at 7:58 pm
I’m glad someone has finally taken an interest in providing more facts about Poveglia. Since I first read about it in some stupid book about haunted places, I’ve been intrigued, and have wanted to know more about the history. The GA show was pretty damn hokey, but it was cool to finally see some video footage of the island. The one question that I have, and the one that’s been bugging me, is this: If it was a mental hospital, what was the name of the institution? And by the same token, what was the name of this supposedly insane doctor?? It’s always “The head doctor”, etc……if this guys really existed, then someone, somewhere, should know his name……..just a thought
posted by Rich on 5-19-2010 at 11:40 am
Really great pictures! I love seeing abandoned places with such history. Very interesting portrayal.
posted by Debra on 5-22-2010 at 4:37 am
Yes, that hyper GA host Zak Bagans needed to calm down and looked absolutely ridiculous in that “doctor’s mask.” But Nick caught a strange black mist. Zak deserved the possession, if he wasn’t acting.
posted by ghostian on 5-28-2010 at 7:19 am
I loved this article. Great photos and history. I started reading, thinking it would be boring. I was so wrong. Love the way you use humor as well. Thank you!
posted by Caroline on 5-30-2010 at 9:49 am
wonderful! thank you for sharing!
posted by kelky on 6-23-2010 at 8:53 am
Great article and pictures. Being a history buff, I found this post very interesting.
posted by MRMAC on 6-25-2010 at 9:42 am
Really nice pics! I would like to get on this island how did you go about finding a ride there???
posted by Theresa on 6-30-2010 at 10:32 am
Very interesting read and good debunking. The word “quarantine” doesn’t stem from the Italian “Quaranta giorni”, but rather from the French “quarantaine”, which means 40-some.
posted by Mathias De Groof on 7-5-2010 at 11:57 am
Thanks for sharing this with us. Nice photos and very enjoyable text. Interesting comments. Agree that a book might be worth your while.
posted by Julie on 9-15-2010 at 10:48 pm
Fantastic article, really enjoyed reading it and looking at the pictures. Whilst most (almost all) articles on this island seemed to concentrate on the creepiness and forebodingness of the place, you chose to see the sunny side of the whole place which is good. Because I would think this is a beautiful island. However, never mock those who believes in the story. If the locals are afraid of it, if it is closed to tourists, there must be something uncomfortable about it.
I suppose maybe I should ask you this; will you dare to camp there for a night? Because all the horror stories start at night, with the bell tolling (creepy bell tower which I noticed is covered up, apparently no more bells there) or screamings and such. In fact a pity you didn’t stay overnight. There might be a different perspective to your article. I mean if there is a place that earns the reputation of being haunted, this island with its sad and dark history would be the most suitable place.
Frankly whilst I like isolation, I don’t think I would want to be there at night. Any abandoned place for decades and as old as this is creepy, rather not scare myself.
posted by SF on 10-8-2010 at 2:26 am
Your article completely pulled me in. VERY interesting and I like your take on it- cheery almost. Cool pics too!
posted by Kelly on 10-10-2010 at 2:47 pm
while in venice last summer, we visited the cemetary island (can’t remember what its called). we thought we were getting off at murano, but weren’t paying attention. we then spent 30 min touring the cemetary waiting for the next ferry to pick us up. it was pretty creepy, but no where near as creepy as this looks. thanks for sharing! also, your hot plate lunch sounds fantastic!
posted by tiffany on 10-11-2010 at 5:53 pm
wow.. thanks for this -this was truly amazing and I enjoyed the reading / pictures…very, very, very much!!!
posted by Carlo on 10-21-2010 at 5:56 pm
dude! is really awesome…!
u ar so brave and perfect explorer!
posted by line on 12-8-2010 at 8:32 am
I went to Poveglia in summer, ’09. I got some “interesting” images in some of my photos, and would love to share them with you, as well as my own experince on the island which I simularly found strangely beautiful.
posted by Abby on 12-15-2010 at 11:07 pm
the GA show was not hokey……
posted by faith on 1-23-2011 at 10:43 pm
Wonderful pictures! Now I wish to go there to, but not for the thrill, but for the wonderful opportunity for really stunning pictures!
posted by Anna on 1-28-2011 at 7:59 pm
Great article and photos….I was on Poveglia last week. It was a very unique experience.I was able to get some great photos also.North of the bridge is very overgrown.I also found the grave of someone buried there.Its very creepy and serene at the same time.
posted by Brett on 3-10-2011 at 5:53 pm
Awesome ! I’d really love to do such thing too :D
Looking forward to your next post, dude (•ˆ⌣ˆ•)
posted by yumi_9 on 4-5-2011 at 2:09 am
GA is how I found out about this place. Interesting Pictures! :D
posted by Dave on 4-7-2011 at 11:31 pm
You should have stayed there at night! Then we could have got a few answers regarding it being haunted. Just out of interest…. Why didn’t you?
posted by Justin on 4-18-2011 at 8:42 am
It’s sad to see this place so wasted, but this is common in Italia, we are full of old buildings that sometimes we forget them and it’s very sad… we can be the most rich country of europe if we can have this places fixed… all Italia is a treasure. For ghosts try Emilia Romagna Castles.Ciao
posted by italiana on 5-8-2011 at 4:08 pm
I just watched that infamous GA episode on Youtube which is what sparked my curiosity about the island and set me googling, despite all the hysteria it looked to me very interesting on its own merit. It’s a shame a more serious and sober set of investigators didn’t do a vigil there, if its so difficult to get to, I’d happily do it myself!
Really enjoyed this article and the photos are wonderful. I visited Lido in 2000 and on route to Venice we passed Pavoglia in the lagoon and I recall the tour guide saying it was uninhabited, I really wanted to visit it, but didn’t know about the ghost stories and history, but I have to say even from a distance it had a real atmosphere about it. It does look so peaceful and eerie but in that abandoned sad way. I do wonder if the old asylum is haunted though, I wouldn’t be surprised. I wonder too if it was used by the Romans before the Barbarian invasions, it may have been a burial ground then, it would be a wonderful place to excavate. The story about the ‘vampires’ was amazing, and the explanation, had no idea! It’s a pity some millionaire doesn’t take Pavoglia on and set about restoring it, making it somewhere safe for visitors again.
Great article, now at least I know what it all looks like there – pretty overgrown and wild!
posted by Liz on 5-10-2011 at 10:51 pm
Calling Ghost Adventures “low rent” and “stupid” really cheapens your writing and makes you look immature. Without those barbs this would have been one of my favorite articles, but these personal attacks instantly developed an adversarial relationship between the author and this reader.
posted by Alex on 6-5-2011 at 5:20 pm
I agree with Alex, there’s no need to call Ghost Adventures (or any paranormal show) stupid. Yes I do watch that show, for the history, and then I look up the places that interest me, but that must mean I’m stupid too for trying to learn the history of different places. And a lot of times television shows cannot say who the mad doctor or nurse are due to privacy laws, but then again that would make tv shows stupid for obeying the law, also if you listen carefully to the “stupid” host they do say “rumors state a mad doctor….”, but then again they’re probably stupid for stating that it’s a rumor. So thank you for calling me stupid as I watch the show for more interesting places to research and learn about. (In case my writing is too stupid, I was using sarcasm)
posted by Pam on 6-21-2011 at 1:40 am
Pretty much what Pam said. I would have enjoyed this article except for the childish name calling and the “OMG it’s not creepy like a ALL!” part. They were there at night with no one else around. It looks like you went there at noon for a joyride. Of course it’s not going to be “creepy” when you can see everything with ease.
As far as the GA tactics go, they have said over and over again they do extreme things to try to get evidence that the paranormal exists. People may not agree with it, but they get results.
I enjoy the show because they visit buildings that are crawling with history. As Pam said, I like to research the history of places they visit at well. To call a show “stupid” for making people aware of such places is completely ignorant.
posted by T on 6-25-2011 at 10:54 pm
I agree with the last two posts (Pam & T). I enjoy Ghost Adventures and DVR ALL of them! I enjoy the places they visit because I was never a huge history “fan” growing up in school but now find as an adult that I should have paid more attention…love history now and their show makes it fun. I enjoy Zak, Nick and Aaron and the “job” they do on the show. I find it both entertaining, exciting and educational – and wish I had their “nerve”!
posted by Denise N on 6-27-2011 at 2:15 pm
This article that you’ve written is truly amazing. I have never found any other website that details on what Poveglia looks like now. First heard of it on Linda Blair’s show as a child (which was kinda lame, to be honest), and earlier this evening, I was initially devastated to know it isn’t open to visitors as of the present.
Good thing I found your blog. I’m looking forward to visiting Poveglia the same way you did…someday. :D
posted by Demi Molinos on 7-20-2011 at 9:42 am
Interesting article, fine pics. Well done.
posted by Didi Jäger on 7-25-2011 at 10:50 am
This was a good article. Very interesting. Beautiful pictures as well.
However, I have to agree with Pam, T and Denise, It lost a lot on the GA cheap shots.
I understand that everyone is entitled lo their opinion. And mine is that your childish jabs at Ghost Adventures only cheapened your otherwise interesting and well written article.
It was simply unnecessary.
posted by Jenn on 8-21-2011 at 8:10 am
I just happened upon this site because I just bought your book, and I absolutely loved this article. As for the people who are offended with the “cheap shots”, get over it already! These were beautiful photos and the article was brilliantly written and filled with so many facts that were, until now probably not known by most people. I love this site and will be visiting it regularly.
Thanks Ransom.
posted by dj on 8-26-2011 at 10:04 pm
Just been to Povegia and really fascinating place! Here is my post http://wp.me/pKhW7-d4
posted by Marco Secchi on 8-28-2011 at 11:52 am
if we were wanting to move onto this island who would we contact.
posted by khris and zach on 8-28-2011 at 10:48 pm
Now that was good. Tastefully-done HDR as well. Resembles a level from STALKER or one of those computer games; would make a good film location! I’ve been to Venice a few times, and whilst skimming over it on Google Earth I was curious about some of the islands, which led me to this post; Poveglia is off towards the Lido, but looks forlorn and deserted from the air. I’m surprised it doesn’t have squatters, but then again they’d have a bleak life without the internet (although perhaps you can pick up wireless from the island, dunno).
posted by Ashley Pomeroy on 9-1-2011 at 3:45 pm
About the island not being open to the general public: I think that was a truly wise decision. That place is one giant cemetary, and with its sad history should be treated with the utmost respect. If it’s true that the remains of more than one hundred thousand people are buried somewhere on that tiny island, than that island should be treated as a sacred location. I think thrill seekers should visit some other place for their cheap thrills.
posted by Anthony on 10-25-2011 at 9:36 am
You were quick to bash the ghost adventure
guys. But I notice you went to the island in the day time. If it’s such a peaceful place, why don’t you go spend the night there?
posted by brenda on 11-19-2011 at 10:35 pm
hey im stationed in aviano italy. ive been to venice a bunch of times. i was wondering if you could share how you actually got on the island. i cant seem to find any way and a little help would be greatly appreciated. please feel free to email me back as im very intrested in going to this island
posted by ray garcia on 1-10-2012 at 12:35 am
I’ve been a fan of your work for awhile, however, the childish stabs at Ghost Adventures is what’s gonna stop me being a fan. I’ll take my “low-rent” eyes and money elsewhere instead of looking for you Ransom. I had a lot of respect for you. Sadly, it’s not there anymore.
posted by Wes on 1-13-2012 at 5:04 pm
I had no idea there were so many Ghost Adventures fans out there. Noted.
posted by Ransom Riggs on 1-13-2012 at 9:24 pm
really, don’t worry about it. those ghost adventure fans are just realizing that if other people see them as morons, they might actually BE morons, because what other people think really is of utmost importance to them.
great article, wonderful photos!
posted by not an idiot on 1-24-2012 at 3:24 pm
Thanks for the great article and good photos.
posted by victor on 2-6-2012 at 8:55 am