CAPELA DOS OSSOS - THE CHAPEL OF HUMAN BONES

That's right, you heard me!

For fans of the macabre, this is a must see travel destination, and well worth the 2 hour bus ride from Lisbon, Portugal's Rocking Capital. Located in Evora, underground, beneath The (catholic) Royal Church of St Francis, Capella Dos Ossos is a consecrated chapel decorated roof to floor in human skeletons.

Built by Franciscan monks between 1460 and 1510, the chapel's primary purpose was to house the skeletons relocated from the then 42 cemeteries surrounding Evora. The monks chose to display the bones as a reminder of the inevitability of death, but also as a reminder, that (according to their catholic beliefs) citizens could live on, through Jesus. A message they drove home with the addition of an alter and crucifix, and more literally through the decorative Latin phrasing "I leave but I don't die", and "I die in the light" which still appears on the chapel roof today ( or at least did in 2003 when I was there).

From the street, The Royal Church of St Francis looks like any other Renaissance style Catholic Church, beautifully designed, heavily adorned and steeped in tradition. It's when you begin to descend underground, you soon realise that you are in for something very different! The pillared entrance to the chapel is engraved with the Latin "Nós ossos que aqui estamos, pelos vossos esperamos: Our bones that are here wait for yours!" and that is where the creepy starts. It's dark, but with dramatic floor lights used to highlight some of the features, like the TWO FULL HUMAN CORPSES THAT HANG FROM THE WALL, ONE OF A MAN, ONE OF HIS CHILD! (You can gag now if you like). There are many legends about who these two, the most popular being that it is the corpse of a cheating husband and his child cursed by the jilted wife, but whatever you believe, this is seriously dark stuff to see. I didn't know to expect the full corpses going in, and when I saw the adult corpse I was taken back, but fascinated, when I saw the baby my heart skipped a full beat. I like creepy and I like strange, but this was, and remains in the top 4 things I have seen that I wish I never did. 

(The other things on that list are a fresh dead body, a dissected foetus and Miss Congeniality 2!)