One of the things Joan and I like to do every winter is to visit Christmas and holiday markets around Europe. There’s plenty to eat and experience at these markets, from dressed up characters to entire towns decked out in the spirit of the season.
One of the most unique (and freaky) Christmas markets we’ve ever visited was in a cave!
You read that right–a cave.
Seriously, in the Netherlands, there’s a town called Valkenburg that long ago was inhabited by the Romans, and now in the winter the Dutch transform part of an enormous cave into a Christmas market there.
The cave was originally a quarry, dug out by the Romans over 20 centuries ago!
The cave’s walls have been decorated over the last 2000 years with sculptures and other art, and it has been used as a shelter and hiding place during various wars, including the French revolution, both world wars, and countless other conflicts over the centuries.
The cave even has a man-made subterranean lake that has inadvertently formed over the years.
Oh, and lest I forget to mention, it’s haunted! Oh yes, very haunted.
If you take a good look at the first photo above, you should notice several orbs in it. Look to the center and then slightly to the right, and you should see the orbs. I can’t say that these orbs are paranormal, they could simply be a type of reflection from the various lights in the cave. However, the shades and shapes of the orbs do not match any of the lights.
Just this morning, as I began to write about our experience in the cave, I got crazy chills. I think it says a lot that the mere memory of the place and what I experienced there makes me feel so uneasy. After all, I’m not unfamiliar with dark entities, such as the shadow figures, Wee-Jees.
At a point, when we reached the end of the market, there were barriers warning us not to go further into the cave, so being the explorer type that I am, I looked beyond as far as I could see, and I saw something disconcerting. I saw what I thought was a mist forming in the distance. It sent a freezing sensation throughout my body and nearly caused me to panic.
I’m not claustrophobic, so the tight space wasn’t bothering me. No. It wasn’t that. There was something else there, in the darkness. Something unfriendly.
All the while, as I walked through the cave, I had been taking photographs, so before I even started experiencing the odd feelings, I had been taking photos of everything, even the distant darkness beyond the barriers. Take a look at one of the photos I took beyond the barriers, below:
I didn’t see the orbs with my naked eyes, so I had no idea they were there. It was surprising to find them in the photos, especially in this one where I had such a sickening, dark feeling.
Again, I can’t say these are certainly paranormal, but if I go with what I felt, I believe they are spirits.
I did see the mist forming in the distant darkness. I highlighted it with a circle on the right side of the second photo. I’m sorry, I know it’s very hard to see, but I can assure you, it is there. In the below photo I zoomed in and cropped it, and hopefully, it’s clear enough. It’s in both circled locations.
However, I readily admit that it’s hard to say what it actually was because the cave has a weird internal environment all of its own. The red triangles are “last warning” signs not to go further.
I’ll tell you this, it was creepy as hell in there, even with all the people and festivities going on.
The cave wasn’t a good place, especially not for the slaves that quarried it so long ago or the unlucky people who hid in it and were found by their enemies. I do not know the entire history of the cave, but it doesn’t require much to know lots of death happened in there because you can feel it. It was hard not to feel it.
I sincerely believe the cave is filled with the spirits of the countless dead who died there.
Maybe the Roman slaves are still trying to find their way out and maybe those who were fleeing their enemies think they are still alive and hiding, even though they were found and killed long ago.
One of the vendors told us remnants of witches and demon worshipers holding unholy rituals have been found in the cave. If true, maybe, due to the many rituals and seances, demonic entities now inhabit the cave, too.
The cave is not all bad news, though, far from it.
Many did survive because they hid in the Valkenburg caves. In fact, near the end of World War Two, when US Soldiers liberated the town, they discovered Valkenburg practically deserted, and eventually, the locals came out from hiding, to the happy surprise of their liberators!
The cave we visited has known much death, but it has also been a sanctuary. Personally, I can’t imagine hiding within its walls of darkness for long. It must have been beyond challenging, to say the least.
God bless those who survived and those who did not.
I do recommend visiting the cave to anyone who is not claustrophobic or fearful of going deep, because the walls are covered with historical art everywhere you look and it’s absolutely amazing to see. It’s rare when you get to walk through history itself. Beware, though, you may experience more than you expect.
I’d love to hear from you, so if you’d like to comment or discuss this article, let’s do that on Facebook, here.
