Italy Poveglia

We visited the abandoned island of Poveglia near Venice; a place full of tragedy and death. For a long time, it was used as a hospital and quarantine station for plague victims and then was converted into an asylum for long term care of the mentally ill. These days, it is hard to find Italians who will take you to the island; many people being superstitious, they believe the island is haunted. I managed to persuade a lovely lady to drop us off by boat and return for us six hours later. I wandered from my friends walking around the mass of undergrowth on my own was surreal but peaceful at the same time. With nature’s song all around me, it was hard to imagine the amount of death that had happened on this tiny island. As I walked across the connecting bridge to the burning grounds, I thought of the spine chilling stories about this site. People dead of the plague or still alive and exhibiting symptoms had been burned in this spot.