The world above the ground is beautiful. You might know a lot of incredible places but have you ever had an underground experience. Secret passages, forbidden activities, ghostly whispers, and urban legends- the underground world has it all. The majority of people are ignorant of the most beautiful tourist spots just beneath their feet. The underground world will astound you with everything from military tunnels and salt mines to rock-hewn temples and ancient cisterns underneath modern-day cities.
Let’s have a look at some of the fascinating underground attractions.
It’s a remarkable achievement in itself that engineers, miners, and sculptors were able to carve out a cathedral beneath 200 meters of salt, rock, and minerals. The Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá in Colombia, on the other hand, is even more incredible. The light shines brilliantly through it, flooding the chambers and tunnels with a haze of blues and purples that is almost neon-like. On a Sunday, you’ll notice another oddity: it’s still a fully operational Roman Catholic church.
You’ve seen haunted mansions and abandoned ghost towns, but you haven’t seen anything terrifying until you’ve walked the Catacombs of Paris’ tunnels. The 200-mile underground network, dubbed the world’s greatest burial, has six million bones that are ominously, yet aesthetically, placed. The neatly kept skulls and bones exhumed owing to congestion in cemeteries, are unlike anything else you’ll see in the City of Love.
A ‘Transylvanian subterranean theme park’ sounds like something from the Scooby-Doo universe. But it does exist, and it isn’t at all weird. Salina Turda, a vast salt mine deep beneath the Earth’s surface, offers activities like as a panoramic wheel, mini-golf, bowling, table tennis, and even boating on a mine lake. The park makes up for its lack of classic high-thrill rollercoasters with breathtaking surroundings.
The Churchill War Rooms, rated as one of the top things to do in London, England, is a fascinating look into the bunker that protected then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his war cabinet from German bomb raids and served as the headquarters for strategizing the Allied route to victory during WWII. The Map Room, which has remained in the same state since 1945, is a must-see.
Although it may not appear so now, this multi-level underground city formerly included dwellings, wine cellars, churches, stables, and other structures. It hid as many as 20,000 people and safeguarded them from invasions in its heyday, thanks to a system of tunnels that connected to neighboring underground towns. The now-abandoned 200-foot-deep chamber, which also happens to be Turkey’s largest excavated subterranean city, is a strange tourist attraction today.
Under in Kristiansand, Norway deserves a spot on our list despite not being as much underground as it is underwater. Diners tuck down while frigid North Sea currents swirl over the windows of this sophisticated restaurant, which is five and a half meters below the surface. Despite the storminess of the surrounding oceans, Under has an unsettling calm… but you never know what can emerge from the depths.
The 30 or so caverns of Ajanta are remarkably brightly lighted, given that they’re dug deep into a rock face. All of the light makes admiring this extraordinary collection of Buddhist temples, monasteries, and monuments from the first and second centuries BC much simpler. They have some of the best remaining examples of old Indian wall painting: granite that has been carved with exquisite decoration rather than merely painted.
The Golden Temple of Dambulla, also known as the Dambulla Cave Temple, is Sri Lanka’s biggest and best-preserved cave-temple complex. The attractions of this UNESCO World Heritage Site include a 100-foot-tall gold-gilded Buddha at the cave’s entrance, mural paintings that cover the cave walls, and over 150 sculptures commemorating Buddha, gods, goddesses, and monarchy.
The Basilica Cistern is one of Istanbul’s most beautiful ancient structures. In AD 532, Byzantine Emperor Justinian I constructed this large subterranean cistern. It is also one of the most stunning underground tourist attractions as well as a massive underground water reservoir. Due to its subterranean marble columns, it is also known as “Yerebatan Cistern.” The Medusa-head column bases are the cistern’s greatest feature. Furthermore, given to its enormous depth, the greatest time to explore this location is on a hot summer day.
Underneath the bustling cafés of Indianapolis’ City Market, you’ll find a 22,000-square-foot network of tunnels that are deceptively silent (2,043sqm). The limestone brick arches and pillars were part of the basement of Tomlinson Hall, a massive municipal structure that burned down in 1958. When they’re back up and running, organized excursions let you explore the musty underground warren that’s popular with ghost seekers.
