Underground Places
- Fresno, CA
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Palermo, Sicily
- Edinburgh, Scotland
- Odessa, Ukraine
Forestiere Underground Gardens
In 1906, Baldasare Forestiere began a rather unusual project in the cellar of his home outside of Fresno, California. For the next forty years, using only hand tools, Forestiere single-handedly built a huge complex of more than 100 underground rooms—along with a chapel and a fishpond. Skylights provide sunlight and rain water to the subterranean gardens, which are filled with countless fruit trees and grapevines.
Manzana de las Luces
Underneath the Manzana de las Luces, in the historical center of Buenos Aires, is a mysterious system of tunnels that were built in the 1700s and rediscovered in 1912. Some of the passages are more than 50 feet underground and large enough to ride a horse through—yet no one seems to know why they were built.
Capuchin Catacombs
Deep beneath the Capuchin monastery in Palermo, Sicily is one of the most shocking sights you’re ever likely to see. Suspended from hooks on the walls of a 400-year-old subterranean crypt are more than 8000 mummies (including those of small children and babies). Some of the mummies are now little more than bones, but others are almost perfectly preserved.
The Edinburgh Vaults
In the 1780’s an enormous bridge was built to connect the old, medieval area of Edinburgh with the part of the city known as New Town. Not long after, the nineteen stone arches that supported the bridge were enclosed, creating a vast series of dark, dismal underground chambers. The poorest citizens of the town lived, worked, and died by candlelight in these vaults. Eventually, Edinburgh’s underground became too horrible for human habitation. The vaults were closed up and forgotten until the 1980s.
The Katakombi
In the 19th century, smugglers and revolutionaries transformed the abandoned limestone mines underneath the city of Odessa into a maze of tunnels. Known as the katakombi, the tunnels were used extensively during WWII by partisans hiding from the Nazis, but they have yet to be fully mapped or explored.