A Haunted Island, Poveglia

The island, Poveglia, was put up for auction on condition that Italian government leases the island for 99 years. As you can see the map, the island is located on an excellent place where is between Venice and Lido in northern Italy, and it is picturesque surroundings. It looks like Sleeping Beauty’s castle.

             
            How much are you willing to pay for it if you have enough money? 500 billion dollars or more? You cannot control your shock if you know how much the island was auctioned off. It was awarded 513,000 euros(about 700,000 dollars) by Luigi Brugnaro, an Italian businessman. Could you believe it? Is it so cheap, isn’t it?

There are horror stories about the island. After you know the stories, you will nod your head why the bid is dirt cheap. When the Black Death had been a raging epidemic in the 14^th century, the Italian government isolated patients from Venice. The government sent them to the island because the Venice had a fetid smell of dead corpses. People made a big hole, dumped the bodies in the pit, and burnt them off. What was worse, some people who were showing symptoms were burnt with corpses. Of course, it couldn’t be helped because there was no alternative. However, whenever I am faced with remorseless events, people do anything no matter how it is cruel. More than 160 thousand people died in the island, and the island was covered with ashes of them. If people see ghosts in the island, it might be true.

Unfortunately, this is not the last. A person built a mental hospital in 1922. Strangely, patients began to die off without any special reason. Was it because of the curse of ghosts?  Maybe many people thought that way. One day, the director of the hospital committed suicide by drowning. After his death, people knew a startling discovery: he did medical experiments on patients, and the reason of the strange death of patients was his experiments. A new rumor began to circulate. The rumor was that the reason of his death was not a suicide, but it was because of ashes of infectious cases. The ashes strangled his neck, and he died. True or not, people started to leave the island. The island changed to haunted island?

Now what do you think about the winning price? Is it still cheap?

Soon you can visit the island because the successful bidder is changing the island from haunted island to a tourist spot. Do you want to visit the place?  I don’t.