Shutter Island of Poveglia (Venice) is definitely one of the most haunted places in the world, let alone in Italy and it is totally off-limits for the visitors. The story is controversial and scary, because we are not talking about a building, but a whole island of death.
It is said that the haunted island has hosted over 160.000 plague infected souls, meaning that 50% of the soil consists of human remains.You can actually see parts of human skeletons in the open air and feel weird presence near you at all times. It hides a long tradition of human suffering, being known as a city of barbarians, a battlement station, a place where soldiers were captured and burnt alive, a bubonic plague quarantine station and checkpoint and as an asylum for the mentally ill.
Its final status is the creepiest one, because it includes a sadistic doctor. The story says that the doctor used to perform horrible experiments on the patients, being convinced that lobotomies represented the perfect way of treatment. It is said that he used hammers, nails, drills and chisels while torturing the mentally ill. Other mysterious experiments were performed on patients in the hospital’s bell tower, in which they stayed awake at night scared to death by the ghosts they already heard and screaming of pain and despair. The doctor soon began to be harassed by spirits and went insane, throwing himself from the top of the bell tower, in which he used to commit his atrocities.
