Madrid is an ancient city and every single street is steeped in history. The city has lived through hundreds of years of expansion, construction, destruction and rejuvenation, and you are bound to hear more than a few legends and tales of the otherworldly.
Madrid, therefore, offers some great ghost hunting and if you fancy seeing some supernatural sightings yourself, ShMadrid advises to head to one of these spooky buildings in Madrid and you might encounter a ghost or two….
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Index
Visit Madrid’s haunted places
Palacio de Linares
Photo via Pixabay
This cultural centre now called Casa de America is at Plaza de la Cibeles, 2 in the district of Centro, and it promotes cultural diversity through art from Latin America. It was rebuilt in 1884 by the Marques de Linares, a wealthy businessman called Jose de Murga y Reolid originally from Madrid.
The legend starts when José de Murga told his father, Mateo de Murga, he had fallen in love with a girl called Raimunda Osorio, a humble daughter of a cigar seller from the Lavapies neighbourhood. Hearing this news his father immediately sends his son to study in England without giving any other explanations.
When José finally comes back to Madrid his father has passed away and José marries Raimunda who he still loves and they move to the Palacio de Linares which they start to remodel completely.
Then José finds a letter from his father confessing that he had a fling with a woman from the Lavapies neighbourhood and that this woman has given birth to a daughter called Raimunda and José discovers that the woman he is married to is also his half-sister!
By that time Raimunda is already pregnant though from José´s first child and she gives birth to a baby girl. Legend is now that the couple killed their only daughter when she was still a child by drowning her and that they buried the corpse in the palace when they were doing the remodelling of the building.
Visitors and staff of the palace have claimed over the years, on numerous occasions, to have seen a little girl wandering through the corridors of the palace singing children songs and calling for her parents…
Reina Sofia Museum
Photo via Pixabay
This modern art museum on Calle de Santa Isabel, 52 in the neighbourhood of Embajadores, is over 200 years old. It was once an army hospital, which probably is the reason for the high account of paranormal activity that employees and visitors have reported over the past decades.
Numerous staff members have reported strange sights during the night, as well as hearing noises and voices in the central part of the museum… Elevators have suddenly started to work while they were completely disconnected, and shouts were recorded on video by Spain’s most famous ghost hunter Iker Jimenez…
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Cats Hostel
This hostel, located on Calle Cañizares, 6 nearby Puerta del Sol, was built on a former church site where word said seven nuns have been killed in the past. Several owners have bought this property only to resell it fast again after strange things started to happen.
One of these owners was the couple José Antonio Abellán and his wife Mara Colás, who bought the building in 2001 but resold it after 3 months of strange successions. While they were rebuilding the place, one day Maria walked up the main stairs when suddenly the old wooden lift also went up alone following the pace of her footsteps…
Other owners as well have seen the lift acting alone on more occasions, and in a side part of the building, the couple discovered an old chapel where they found a still bloody knife…
After three months of other strange successions (doors that suddenly will not open, lights that go on and off all the time, tools that suddenly are misplaced), the couple decided to resell and the building has been used as a hostel since then.
The current receptionist says he knows about the ghost stories but claims that there have not been any strange encounters in the hostel in recent years. He also confesses that the hostel is not to keen on that kind of publicity and that some staff members do acknowledge strange encounters have occurred…
Have you felt, heard or seen something strange while visiting these buildings?
