Poveglia Island

Saturday, April 30

Ever since Preston and I got stationed here in Aviano, Preston reminded me that right off of Venice is the Island of Poveglia from Ghost Adventures. We love watching Ghost Adventures and thought it would be amazing if we ever had the chance to go to this island. But we knew most likely it would not come true because this island has been banded from anybody coming on it because of all the bad things that have happened on this island.

Here is a link to an article from Ghost Adventures briefly explaining about the history of this island and also a short clip from the episode (Season 3, Episode 3). Poveglia Island Article

To briefly explain myself about Poveglia, in 421 this island was first where people would be sent if they were diseased or dying. Later on in the 1300s the Bubonic Plague spread rapidly throughout Venice. Poveglia was the island where people with this disease would be sent off to die. Then in the 1800s, the island was turned in to an asylum for the mentally ill. However, since it was poorly designed, they turned in to a place of exile, not a rehabilitation place like it was first established to be. On this island, one of the doctors's who was there to try and help the "patients" went insane and threw himself off the bell tower.

All of these tragedies and different occurrences, had made this island banned from locals to visit. Also, they were too scared to even go there, as they did not want any diseases or spirits following them back to land.

Now to tell about my experience there...

Preston's supervisor had heard that there was a tour that was going to go to Poveglia Island, so of course he jumped on it for us. We were both beyond excited to be able to do this, as everybody thought this island was banned. Somehow they were allowing people to go over there and walk around for an hour, hopefully it was approved...

The tour consisted of riding over on a pirate ship which was a little over an hour, then you have an hour to walk around the island, then to head back. Plus it was unlimited free drinks, yes alcohol was included ;) It was all for only 55 euro! Not bad at all we thought!

There ended up being 10 of us going from Preston's shop.

Since I was beyond excited about this opportunity, I went crazy and took a bazillion pictures. So there will be a ton of pictures in this post.

(Tori and I, two of the wives from Bio)

We met at a place a little outside of Venice to hope on the pirate ship. I thought it was a perfect location as then we got to ride by Venice. Since it was perfect weather, we had an absolutely beautiful view of Venice from the water!

While cruising over it was nice to enjoy some of the unlimited beverages. Also, just enjoying the atmosphere.

Once we got to the island we were allowed to explore wherever we wanted to on the island.

At first it was actually really hard to try and find your way to one of the buildings as everything is so overgrown! We needed a machete knife like the Ghost Adventures crew had.

























Eventually we made our way to the first building.

It was so cool to be able to step inside! You definitely had to be careful where you stepped and what you did, as the place has been abandoned for so long that almost everything is falling down or damaged.

There were so many sections of the buildings that were missing, so if you did not watch your step you could fall all the way to the bottom.

(Bell Tower the doctor threw himself off of)

We were able to walk through multiple of the buildings on one side of the island, but unfortunately, with only the hour time limit we didn't get to make it to the other side of the island. The other side of the island is where they burned and buried the people. Apparently, they say the "dirt" is just like ash/dust because of all the dead bodies over there. (Sorry for the graphic explanation)

Now time for the ship ride back.

Time to have some fun and be silly on the pirate ship on the way back!

If this opportunity came up again, I would definitely do it again!

I lived a Ghost Adventures dream!