And how about the devil’s swimming pool? There’s a salt lake in Turkey turned into a bizarre shade of pink, looking blood-like due to the massive Rosy Dunaliella salina algae that’s bloomed. Lake Tuz spans more than 600 sq miles and is one of the lakes with the highest salinity levels worldwide, evaporating in the summer which in turn kills the plankton that eat the algae. You know what else eats this algae? Flamingos. Is that why they’re pink? Yeah.

Ever imagined what the Door to Hell looks like? For daredevils keen to experience being of such close proximity to danger (so close, that it’s almost certain death if you happen to stumble and fall into it), visit the deep fiery pits of Darvaza Crater in Turkmenistan. At a drilling accident in 1971, the ground collapsed and released toxic gases that were set alight. Scarring the earth like a vicious pockmark, the crater burns ferociously in an intense, permanent rage...

Speaking of bones, at a city just 70km east of Czech capital stands a Roman Catholic chapel. Inside, the 12th century Sedlec Ossuary is reckoned to contain skeletons of up to 70,000 people! With such artistic precision in which the skeletons have been arranged, skulls and bleached bones hang in dimly-lit vaults. Its most chilling masterpiece is a macabre work of exquisite craftmanship, a vast chandelier made of every bone from the human body – grinning down over passerbys...

Standing on a cliff near Brasov, high up above all the tallest trees, a fortress was built to protect against the invasion of Ottoman Turks in the 14th century. Today it draws nearly half a million visitors every year, where vampire lore enthusiasts learn about the history of the home’s owner; a real-life prince whose penchant for gruesome murders gave him the title “Vlad the Impaler”, inspiring Bram Stoker to pen “Dracula” in 1897... Are *you* going anywhere this Halloween?