Everyone loves a good ghost story and hotel ghost stories are especially plentiful in Europe. We give you a rundown of the best places for ghost hunting, in case you’re in the mood for haunted hotels and travel experiences this Halloween.

EUROPE’S MOST HAUNTED HOTELS

 

Here are some of the most haunted hotels in Europe, by the way, just in case you’re headed over there and in the mood for collecting a couple of hotel ghost stories of your own.

Dalhousie Castle

Scotland

 

Chateau de Marcay

France

 

Chateau de Brissac

France

 

Shelbourne Hotel

Ireland

 

Hotel Burg Reichentstein

Germany

 

Decebel Hotel

Romania

GHOSTS IN BORDEAUX, FRANCE 

 

My cousin, who claims to have a third eye that enables her to see spirits, recently recalled checking into a chateau hotel in Bordeaux, France. She said she saw images of people from the past all along the hotel corridor, as she was walking to her room.

“They all looked pale and were lined up against the wall expressionless,” she told me. And this is what I said to her after she told me this: “If we ever travel together somewhere, and you see a ghost in one of our hotels, please don’t tell me about it.“

 

GHOSTS IN EUROPE

However,  hotel ghost stories are quite normal in Europe. Mos Europeans I’ve spoken to don’t seem to care much about having to live with spirits long gone. They even put up patiently with the idiosyncrasies of the ghosts – taking everything in with an amused air.

Perhaps banging doors and footsteps on the second floor ar as much a part of their lives as cable television and the internet.

HAUNTINGS IN INNSBRUCK, AUSTRIA

Many years ago, I checked into a small hotel in Innsbruck, Austria which had all its walls painted black. The somber atmosphere should have foretold of eerie occurrences.

 

 

However, I naively chalked this up to a taste for the avant-garde and a penchant for dark colors. In the middle of the night, however, the radio began blaring at full blast. Startled out of my sleep, I immediately shut it off.

Later, amidst the fog of a waking dream, it came on again. The skeptical might attribute this to faulty wiring but who really knows? And why did the radio only turn on at midnight?

HOTEL GHOST STORIES IN VENICE

 

Another summer, I was staying alone at one of Venice’s top hotels and very much enjoying a room filled with antiques and facing the Grand Canal. However, again, in the middle of the night, I awoke with a jolt, feeling incredibly hot and suffocated.

 

 

I automatically assumed it was the air conditioning and so I called the front desk to complain. The night clerk arrived within minutes, white as a sheet. Without explanation, he moved me to another room where I promptly resumed a comfortable rest.

 

SUFFOCATING IN VENICE

 

I thought it odd that he hadn’t even bothered to check the room’s cooling system, but soon forgot about this. I stayed on for a few more days, walking around Venice and making the rounds of my favorite shops. I even spent a day at the Lido, hanging around a beach.

 

 

Later, I bumped into one of the young men at the concierge desk at a pizzeria one evening. When I mentioned my experiences, he told me that my first hotel room was known to be haunted, and that guests often complained feeling suffocated while sleeping there. Aah, I said to myself. So that’s why the night clerk looked like he’d literally seen a ghost…

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Concord, Massachusetts

The original part of the Concord’s Colonial Inn was built in the early 1700s before the Revolutionary War. With such a long history, it’s no wonder that spirits still wander the halls of this historic hotel. One of the most famous, haunted and sought-after guest rooms is room 24. During the Revolutionary War, the right side of the Inn was privately owned by Dr. Timothy Minot.

When patriot soldiers were injured at the Battles of Lexington and Concord at the North Bridge, they were brought to his home. Dr. Minot used what is now the Liberty Room as a hospital and room 24 as an operating room. Several soldiers in room 24 died during surgery and then brought directly downstairs into room 27, the makeshift morgue.

It’s no wonder then that guests have reported lights flickering in room 27 or turning on and off completely. One guest woke up in the middle of the night and every light was on in the room. Others heard hushed whispers from the closet and have seen the door to slamming shut on its own.

Eureka Springs, Arkansas

The 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa, well known today as being a mountaintop spa resort in the Arkansas Ozarks, was once used as a Cancer Curing Hospital which was under the control of the hospital’s owner, reported charlatan Norman Baker from Muscatine, Iowa.  Baker operated his Eureka Springs’ facility from 1937 until December 1940.

There are many paranormal patrons with terrifying tales to tell. Among those are Michael, the Irish stonemason who, while constructing the building back in 1885, fell to his death in the footprint of what is now Room 218. He has thought to be a frequent visitor to the room since the day of his death. There’s also Theodora in Room 419 – a patient and helper during the days when Norman Baker owned the hotel. She reportedly puts bags in front of the door from the inside, making it hard for guests to enter upon their return. Dozens of ghost like encounters and creepy, unexplained occurrences happen at this haunted hotel on a regular basis.

Jekyll Island, Georgia

The Jekyll Island Club Resort has seen many families come and go since it opened in 1887. With all that time, comes the stories and mysteries, the staff and guests have encountered firsthand. One such encounter involves the family of J.P. Morgan.

Sans Souci, is a four-story structure erected in 1896 as one of the first condominiums for families to use, including the family of J. Pierpont Morgan. His family rooms were located on the third floor, facing the Jekyll River.

Mr. Morgan loved cigars. As the story goes, one could tell where he was by following the trail of smoke. To avoid criticisms for his hobby, he rose early every morning to smoke on the porch.Those who have stayed in the Morgan’s old apartment swear they have awakened to the faint smell of cigar smoke wafting about when there is absolutely no one else awake.

Nashville, Tennessee

One of Nashville’s most iconic landmarks, Union Station Nashville, Autograph Collection is also reportedly one of the most haunted hotels in America. It resides in a building that previously served as the city’s buzzing railway station. Guests discovers the building’s rich history through another kind of encounter: with the hotel’s resident ghost, Abigail.

Legend has it that during World War II a young woman, Abigail, said goodbye to her soldier on the Union Station train platform. When she arrived to greet him on his return, she instead learned that he was killed in action. Distraught, Abigail threw herself in front of a passing locomotive. Her forlorn spirit still wanders the main terminal and in Room 711. Now known as the Abigail Room, guests can stay in the haunted suite. It features antique furnishings, a four-poster bed, and artwork inspired by her tale.

Honolulu, Hawaii

On February 28, 1905, the untimely death of Jane Stanford, co-founder of Stanford University, made headlines everywhere. Stanford, who was vacationing in Hawaii following a strychnine poisoning attempt on her life, died in her room at the Moana Surfrider, A Westin Resort & Spa.

People say that the ghost of Stanford still frequents this hotel. Guests and hotel staff have said that they’ve seen her walking at night trying to find her room.

New Hampshire

Known affectionately by staff members as “the princess”, Caroline Foster, was a long-time inhabitant of Omni Mount Washington Resort, Bretton Woods. Her husband, railroad tycoon Joseph Stickney, built the grand resort in 1902.

Incorporating special accommodations for his wife, construction of the resort included an indoor swimming pool and a private dining room for Caroline known today as the “Princess Room.” Many guests continue to report sightings of the regal Caroline. This hotel is considered among the most haunted hotels in America.

There are reports of an elegant woman in Victorian dress wandering the hallways of the hotel; there are light taps on doors when no one is outside; and items suddenly disappear and then reappear in the place they were lost. But perhaps the most common sighting of the beloved Caroline is in room 314, where guests report seeing a vision of the woman sitting at the edge of their bed.

Asheville, North Carolina

There is a strange, but gentle spirit residing within the walls of Omni Grove Park Inn. Known simply as the “Pink Lady”, she has been a fixture in the hotel for nearly a century. She reportedly died on the Palm Court floor after falling two stories from the fifth floor to the third floor. The Pink Lady is a dense pinkish smoke with a presence felt by guests throughout the hotel grounds.

San Antonio, Texas

The Emily Morgan is known to be one of the most haunted hotels in all of Texas. According to various reports, even some given by the hotel’s own management team, the most haunted floors are the seventh, ninth and fourteenth floors in addition to the basement.

It was these particular floors that at one time functioned as the psychiatric ward, surgery level, waiting area and morgue, respectively. At the Emily Morgan, almost all of the paranormal reports involve ghosts and spirits from days gone by when the building was the medical building.

Guests have reported strange things occurring on these particular levels. Those staying on the fourteenth level of the Emily Morgan generally have one thing to say: that the smell is acutely reminiscent of a hospital. Guests have reported to opening the doors to the hallways only to find a scene from a hospital waiting right inside.

Salem, Massachusetts

The city of Salem is notorious for the Salem Witch Trials in 1692 and is prone to hauntings and spirits of its own. Hawthorne Hotel has ghost stories, mostly attributed to the sea captains who were returning to their gathering place. In particular, guests staying in rooms 612 and 325 have reported of lights turning off and on and experiencing a general uneasy feeling throughout the haunted rooms.

Saranac, New York

This historic Hotel Saranac, Curio Collection by Hilton was built on foundation of a former High School. It is the only hotel building remaining of 13 luxury hotels that once served this community. While fires led to the downfall of some of the area’s hotels, survived by design: made of steel and brick, Hotel Saranac was the area’s first fireproof hotel. The hotel had a civil defense tower on top, where it is said that Boy Scouts wait to watch for Russian Bombers.

Room 308 – Emily Balsam, was a guest at Hotel Saranac and worked at a local college. She had a cat. She was not feeling well and got tired of people checking on her and just wanted to be left alone. Then she disconnected her phone and stopped all housekeeping.

No one saw much of her after that. At some point the guest and staff started to complain about the smell coming from that room and the cat always “crying” and Emily refused to answer the door. The manager at the time went up to talk to her and found she had been dead for weeks and the cat was still alive. The cat was taken to a shelter but it is said that the ghost of Emily’s cat can still be heard crying or scratching at the wall, perhaps wandering the hotel looking for her.

Read more about the most haunted hotels around the world in Travelife Magazine.

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