To wrap up the month of Haunted Journeys, here’s another personal tale, one that starts with medieval relics and ends with… well, keep reading and you’ll find out.
In 2024, my husband and I visited Pisa. A beautiful little city filled with history, culture and gelato that’s worth every single calorie. We did all the touristy stuff – the Leaning Tower of Pisa, wine-tasting at a vineyard, the city walls, daytrips to Florence and Lucca – and when we got to our last day, my husband had one final mission: to find the Thorn of Christ.
It was originally kept in the Chiesa di Santa Maria della Spina, an ornate Gothic church by the Arno, but Google searches said it had been moved to Santa Chiara – a church dating back to 1227.
Which took us ages to find.
Sat Nav seemed determined to give us a tour of everywhere except the correct street. Then when we finally stepped inside Santa Chiara, we wondered if we’d walked into the wrong building. It was completely empty. Not a single other soul was there.
Surely a church supposedly holding a thorn from Christ’s crown would be flooded with tourists, I thought. Instead, it was musty, unoccupied and quietly atmospheric. It was clearly a very old building. The kind that seems to observe and think its own thoughts.
We wandered around (me feeling mildly spooked), both of us convinced Google had told us fibs, because we were unable to find the thorn. But just as we were giving up and about to slip out into the baking hot day, we saw it. Quiet and unguarded in an unassuming spot. So we stepped close and stared at it for a while.
Afterwards, we walked to the Piazza dei Miracoli, weaving between tombs and relics. There were all sorts of morbid treasures tucked into little alcoves: saints’ fingers, fragments of bone, scraps of bloodied cloth. It was fascinating and eerie and seemed the perfect way to end our last day in Italy.
Later that evening, we returned to the hotel, packed our bags and set alarms for an early flight.
But at around 3am (doesn’t everything spooky happen at 3am!) we were jolted awake by a crash so loud I thought someone had climbed in through the bathroom window and ripped the wash basin from the wall.
My husband leapt out of bed and flicked the lights on.
And there was his suitcase lying on the floor in the middle of the room.
It had been on one of those suitcase racks near the wall by the door. And I know what you’re thinking. It must have fallen off.
Well, yes, logical me would like to have agreed. But gravity doesn’t usually fling heavy luggage several feet from its origin.
Thanks to the flying suitcase, I lay awake for the rest of the night, adrenaline surging, replaying every single saint’s bone and relic we’d stared at earlier that day. My brain also decided to bring in themes from The Exorcist, because wasn’t there a demon attached to a relic in that? And the movie Stigmata too!
Even though we hadn’t taken any relics back to the hotel, the thought crossed my mind: What if something has attached itself to us?
I was relieved – not melodramatically, but genuinely – when my alarm went off and we could escape to the airport. Home felt like the safest place in the world.
Until (I kid you not) we were awoken at 3am the first night back. Not by leaping suitcases or ghostly thuds, but by two cats having an unholy screaming match right outside our window.
And so, I lay awake again wondering about black cats and familiars and spirits and demons, and what else besides novelty black spaghetti we might have brought back from Pisa with us.
Next time I’m dragged off to view relics or ancient body parts, I’m taking sage.
And maybe an exorcist.
R. H. DIXON 