Calamari

While answering a post on the Highgate thread, I was reminded of a ghostly encounter many of the people had in the building that my flat was in. Just wondering if anyone else had "ghostly" encounters while in Europe? I've had a few unexplainable events.

WillTravel

What happened to you?
So far, I've not experienced anything unusual, but I haven't stayed at any old places either.
Do European ghosts have better taste than American ones?

Calamari

American ghosts are fatter then European ghosts and of course they are louder other than that I could not say anything else about "American ghosts" as I really have no experience with them. Well, except for an image my daugher and I saw while visiting friends who live in Leesberg,VA. Home built on a battlefield....Friends sold the house and moved after our visit.

Nothing actually "happend" to me during some unexplainable encounters while living in England and Italy. It is sort of hard to explain here but I will try. First place I lived in London was a mansion called the "Brownings" once the home of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barett Browning in Maidavale. It is a five story home with a large rose garden out back. I was living there with friends who owned it. My first night in the house, I was waiting to use the bathroom on the third floor. The door was locked, I could see that the light was on from under the door and I could hear movement, hair brush being placed on the tile vanity, water in the tub being turned off and on, toilet flushing etc. My friends called up to me to see if I was ready for dinner yet. I told them that I was waiting for the bathroom. My friend came upstairs and asked why I was waiting for the bathroom as nobody else was in the house at the time. We both reached for the door handle and found the door to be unlocked and the bathroom full of steam but empty.

Calamari

Many more events took place in that lovely old maiden of a home.

Another home in London was a
a very old and moldy flat in Highgate across from the cemetary. Had a few creepy things happen there.

In Florence, my husband's family lives in a 600 year old monestary. Well, it used to be a monestary right on the Arno river. When a family member passes away it is customary to have the body remain in the house for a couple of days. Many of his relatives passed away in this house. Not knowing any of this when I first moved in, I would hear all sorts sounds at night. I would walk around checking on everyone to see who was doing all the talking. Everyone would always be sound asleep. Since I still did not speak Italian at the time, I did not know what was being said. I asked my husband about the voices and he just casually told me it was his great-grandmother and the old priests who used to live there. After a while I just did not listen for it anymore.

Tangata

I had an odd experience during a visit to Scotland in 1999. We were staying in a hotel, whose name now escapes me, just below the Castle. As my diary records, ?I was woken in the early hours of the morning by (my wife) wandering around in the dark clearly not wanting to wake me up. Being a nice guy, I turn on the lights for her. The light woke up (my wife) who was asleep in the next bed and who demanded to know what was going on, so I explained. I then rolled-over and went back to sleep, but she stayed awake the rest of the night muttering invocations against ghosts and other spirits.?

Earlier in the same trip we visited Dartmoor, although I did not personally experienced anything, my diary records, ?In the evening we returned to Dartmoor. We stopped for a pint or two and an excellent meal at a local pub, only a hundred yards from the prison. After dinner, we were ?entertained? by old Jack, a retired Governor, with tales of Dartmoor and the prison. Not nice sunny stories to tell the grand children, but tales of French prisoners dying in the quicksand, of passageways that hardened wardens will not walk alone after dark, of soldiers that patrol their beat with their feet six inches off the floor, for that is where the floor used to be. Tales of wronged maidens whose lonely suicide's graves are mysteriously adorned with flowers each year on the anniversary of their death and the all too real tales of the horrendous crimes that earned many a lifetime in Dartmoor. It was after 11:00 when we left, even the English summer sun had set. The bus was only 20 yards from the Inn door, but better not to cross alone; what was that thing in the shadows over there??

Calamari

Great story! I also have a Scotland tale. I was staying with my best friend and her family in their ancestoral home in Falkirk (another ancient battlefield). The home is well a castle. Much of it is closed off as it is too much upkeep and too expensive to heat. I was so excited to be in Scotland and to be in a castle that I just could not sleep. Her parents were in bed and she was fast asleep. I tossed and turned and decided to have a wonder around. I walked all over that place and felt the oddest drafts as I went from room to room. Ghosts were the furthest thing from my mind as I wondered around admiring the furnishings all covered up. The next morning I told my friend's mother about my tour. She could not understand where I went as the entire part of the house I wondered around in was not connected to any electrical panel. Well, it was that night! No more Black Label for me.

Calamari

Before Degas or Maitai wake up and see this thread I just want to add that American ghosts also wear tennis shoes (white of course), wear shorts to all cathedrals, have catsup stains on their sheets and always start a haunt off with a guided tour. Now I hope to hear about some real stories.

ira

Interesting thread, Calamari.

I live in a house built in 1893. For the first year we lived here, we occasionally saw the shade of the previous owner - always out of the corner of our eyes. However, he seems to be satisfied that we are taking care of the house, as we have not seen in him in a long while.

We do have our "ghost radio". In the quiet hours of the night we can hear what sounds like a talk radio show just below the threshold of understanding the words. Other people have heard it as well.

Calamari

Ira

Thanks for your input. What you experienced was a phenomeon where as sounds and events become "engraved" at a location much like the process of making a record. The ghost at Highgate and the voices at my husbands home are engraved into the surrounding buildings. Fortunately, only structures and locations are haunted and never actually people.

Calamari

ttt

m_kingdom

Congatulations to "Calamari" for raising such a fascinating topic, this whole paranormal phenomena really interests me - well done! Keep it up with more original posts like this - far more exciting than "how do I dress?", "how do I choose shoes?" etc!!

melr

Sorry to be a spoil sport but there is no evidence whatsoever that ghosts exist. There is evidence, however, that people who WANT to believe in ghostly incidents WILL believe that anything 'out-of-the ordinary' is ghostly behaviour. And there's evidence that people who are on the verge of getting to sleep, or who wake up in the middle of the night, often have 'hallucinations' based on a semi-awake brain trying to make sense of shadows / sounds.

These stories are fun but let's not get sucked in, eh?

Kay_M

I love this thread and hope it keeps going for a while. I haven't had an "encounter" with a European ghost, but I do have this photograph I took of my husband inside the Pantheon in Paris. There is a very bright, glowing, elongated shape that appears in the photo. I'm sure it doesn't have to do with the flash of my camera, as it is a definate worm-like "shape" and the rest of the photo turned out fine. No one I've shown it to knows what it is. A friend of mine suggested it was a ghost. Who knows?

I've also had a couple of weird things happen here at our house. We moved here this summer, our very first house. It's about 100 yrs old. A few times the radio in our bedroom has been turned on and then immediately off again- by the time we hear the radio and look puzzled, it stops. Late one evening a couple of weeks ago, I used the washroom and washed my hands. A couple of minutes later, I could hear a hissing sound from the bedroom. I went to investigate. The tap was running in the bathroom sink. I thought I hadn't turned it off all the way when I used it earlier, so I turned it off and twisted the tap tight. Sure enough, a few minutes later I could hear the tap running again. I turned it off three time in total that night. Maybe it was the plumbing but the tap had never done that before nor since. I was home alone that night and it started to freak me out.

I don't necessarily believe in ghosts but I think anything's possible. I do love a good ghost story, though. Keep 'em coming!

Kay_M

Boo!
tttttt...

craycraft

This probably won't be considered a True Supernatural Experience, but it scared the heck out of me at the time:
So, there I was, walking through the Shambles (narrowest little street) in York, about half past nine p.m. I had walked in the Shambles even later than this before, but had never been completely alone. There are nearly always tourists about, and it's well-lit. Anyway, I'm walking past a little shop with a bow front window, the glass protected by one of those wrought iron cage things. And just as I come abreast of the window, the cage starts rattling mightly. I mean LOUD, VIBRATING rattling. No wind, shop is dark, cage can't be reached from inside the shop anyway. Thought about peering in the windown, but I was running away too fast. Didn't stop until I got to King's Square. My one and only quasi-supernatural experience!

WillTravel

Seasonal bump:

Anyone have any more? I still have none.

One funny thing I've noticed is that most ghost stories seem to be from the UK. Or is it just that these are what English speakers hear?

One would think Italy should be full of ghost stories with all the ghastly lives and deaths that have occurred in all of those old structures, but yet that doesn't seem to be the case. Similarly with France and well, I guess the rest of Europe, for that matter. What are common Italian beliefs about ghosts?

Jan Morris' book on Venice remarks on the paucity of Venice ghost stories, although there are one or two.

cmt

This is copied and pasted from something I posted elsewhere, about the spirit...ghost?...that is determined not to let a certain little Sicilian town be photographed.

SAN SALVATORE DOES NOT WANT TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED

San Salvatore di Fitalia is the little town in the Nebrodi Mountains of northern Sicily where was father (born in the USA) was raised from the ages of two until he returned to the USA at 18. The summer that I was 16 my father was eligible to buy plane tickets to Europe at a very inexpensive group rate, so my parents and I went to London, then Italy and France for about a month. Our trip included a visit to the beautiful but impoverished town where my father had grown up. I was stunned by the beauty of the views from this town. The town itself, so compact and tan and hilly and ancient, was different from anything I had ever seen at home or even on this trip. The old people seemed to be of another time, so unlike the Americans I knew. We met so many of the townspeople: ancient ones who remembered my father, great great uncles, my father?s half-sister, and best for me, her children, my cousins (half first cousins?). My father had a decent Minolta camera that generally took excellent pictures. I couldn?t wait to see the pictures of the town--the tiny narrow streets looking much as they had when my father lived there, the refreshing stimulating views of beautiful green mountains and of the tiny towns on top of neighboring hills?and the pictures of my ?new? cousins and of ancient relatives whom I?d never see again. When my father got his trip pictures developed, they were great, except that there were NO pictures of San Salvatore di Fitalia. The camera had apparently malfunctioned for the first and only time in all thre years he was to have that camera.

Many many years later, in May 2000 I visited San Salvatore di Fitalia by myself after taking a walking tour in eastern Sicily. I left most of my luggage in a very accommodating hotel in Capo d?Orlando and got a ride from a friendly newly discovered second cousin, taking with me just a tote bag with necessities for two days, including my old, heavy, but sturdy Minolta XE-7, which would allow me to make manual adjustments and take exactly the pictures I wanted. I left behind my little yellow waterproof Minolta point-and-shoot, thinking one camera would be quite enough for a short visit. Wouldn?t you know it, in the middle of my visit, the trusty nearly indestructible Minolta got stuck, would simply not advance film, and finally the film broke. My cousins took me to a local shopkeeper/photography expert who opened the camera in the dark, removed the torn film, checked out the camera, and declared it to be in good working order. (To date, it has not gotten stuck again.) Unfortunately, a few of the pictures were lost or damaged. Again, this little town avoided being photographed.

This was Sicily, and there is something about ancient, complex, multicultural Sicily that makes it possible for an otherwise rational, not superstitious person to believe that the tiny old town of San Salvatore is a living thing with a will of its own, and that if it doesn?t want to be photographed, it has the power to prevent it.

Calamari

Well, good to see that this post was dug up from the dead post plot. Strange you should ask about Italian ghost stories. I have one odd event to share - Before we were married (ala fidanzata in casa)and shortly after I moved into my husbands ancestoral home on the Arno River in Florence - I slept in his room while he slept in another bedroom. The sister in law and the MIL were off in their rooms down the hall. The grandmother, aunt & uncle were asleep upstairs in their respective quarters. I think it was my second night in the house when I awoke to a woman's voice calling out my husbands name. I got up and looked out the window as at first it sounded as though it was coming from the grove. I stuck my head out of the window but could not see anything in the pitch dark night, but could hear the river rushing against the stone structure. Convinced I had only heard the river I closed the windows and the shutters and went back to bed. I fell back to sleep immediately only to awaken to a very distinct voice once again calling my husband's name. This time I got up and walked down the hall to see what was going on. Everyone was fast asleep in their beds with their bedroom doors wide open. As I turned around to walk back to the end of the hall back to my bed, I heard the voice again. I woke my husband up to tell him and he told me it was just his great grandmother. The house was very large and I assumed that perhaps I just had not met all of the family members yet. I went back to bed. In the morning I asked my SIL when I would be able to meet the great grandmother. She looked at me in shock and said that she had died 17 years ago...in the bed I had been sleeping in...where she stayed for several days! My husband told me that he too had been hearing her calling out to him at night, but all these years he thought it was only his imagination. 20 years later, I never heard her again.

Ardfert

I read to-day the Oct-Nov.2004 edition of CARA,the magazine of Aer Lingus,the Irish State Airline.One of the articles is about haunted houses and here are some of the websites for those who may be interested: Glin Castle,Co. Limerick is at www.glincastle.com, Castle Leslie,Glaslough,Co. Monaghan (where Paul McCartney got married)is at www.castleleslie.com and Renvyle House in Renvyle,Co. Galway is at www.renvyle.com. Perhaps if any Fodorite sees a ghost in any of these they might let us have the details.