Ethereum

Tales from the Crypt

Collection

Parished (FND)

Creator

the_sparkler

Description

Abandoned Monastery, Italy. In early 2017, my (now) husband and I began talking about marriage. So at that point, I felt it was appropriate to start planning our "urbex" honeymoon. We were married by late December, but were still planning and saving money, so we could do a special one month explore overseas (something we had not done before). I spent many evenings google translating information from different countries in Europe, but we finally decided Italy would be one of the countries we would explore on our trip. The "Blue Chapel" was one of two places that cemented our decision. It was one of the most beautiful abandoned churches I had ever come across in my years of research. Fast forward to summer 2019 - off we flew to our adventure of a lifetime. We spent 9 days in Ireland, 9 days in France and then the grand finale: 9 days in Italy. On day 5, we got to the "Blue Chapel" and entered through the back door, which stood ajar. I started setting up my tripod and camera for this shot, as my husband wandered around looking at all the beautiful details. Before I could even press my shutter button, my husband told me not to go to the front of the chapel. When I asked why, he replied that someone had removed the remains from the crypt and put them on the alter. He then added it was something he wished he hadn't seen. I took only two shots from the back of the chapel, before we decided to leave with heavy hearts. Disturbing someone and moving them from their place of rest, is not what exploring is about. This was most likely done by someone who ignored the explorer's code, in order to become insta-famous. Ultimately, we did not want to be caught inside the building and be mistakenly accused of this behaviour, so we begrudgingly cut our visit short and left. This experience left me very unsettled and very disappointed, as we had planned our entire trip around this particular location. So two days later, as we were circling around to head north again, we decided to go back and try one more time, because we didn't know if we would ever get to return to Italy in the future. When we approached the chapel, the door we had entered through, now had new chains on it. Had someone discovered what was inside? We walked around the building to see if there was another entrance - there was. We reluctantly entered the chapel once more. The remains had been removed from the altar and I wondered if there was a caretaker that watched over the building. My husband and I took some more photos, and quickly slipped out, never to return. But this experience will always be a reminder for me, of the explorer's code: "Take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints."