This and That and something else

odditiesoflife:

Abandoned (Haunted) Hotel in Colombia

The Hotel del Salto is located near Tequendama Falls on the Bogotá River in Colombia. It was opened in 1924 and shut its doors in the 1990′s. The hotel’s Gothic design is perfectly enhanced by a river and waterfall. Some say the hotel is haunted and no one wanted to stay there. Others state that the adjoining river was extremely polluted and they had to close. For whatever reason, the hotel stands as a beautifully macabre landmark for lovers of classic architecture, urban exploration, and maybe a few ghosts.

odditiesoflife:

The Merry Cemetery

In Săpânţa, Romania, there lies a very different kind of cemetery. Rather than the usual dark and ominous crypts and tombstones reminding us of our eventual demise, the Merry Cemetery chooses to remember the past lives of its residents with brightly painted tombstones and even more colorful stories about the people themselves.

The idea for the unusual crosses was started by 14 year old town resident Stan Ioan Pătraşe. By 1935, Pătraş began carving clever verse and ironic poems about the deceased, as well as painting the crosses with the deceased’s image, often depicting their manner of death.

Over 600 beautifully carved wooden crosses display the life stories, personal descriptions and final moments of almost everyone who has died in the town of Săpânţa. The illustrations show everything from soldiers being shot and beheaded to a poor soul being struck by a car.

The epitaphs reveal surprising truths and a fair amount of good humor. For example one cross reads, “Underneath this heavy cross. Lies my mother in law… Try not to wake her up. For if she comes back home. She’ll bite my head off.”

brilliant!