Many will mark Halloween by trick-or-treating, partying, or bingeing on horror flicks – but it’s also the perfect time of year to pick up a bargain flight, and intrepid travellers can work in a spine-chilling Halloween twist to their October city break from Manchester Airport.
Manchester Airport’s network of more than 200 destinations is unrivalled outside London, and that means adventurous thrillseekers can take in some of Europe’s spookiest spots, from haunted castles and dungeons to Old Town ghost tours and Europe’s biggest Halloween Festival. If they’re lucky – or unlucky, depending on your point of view – they might even catch a glimpse of the travel hub’s very own ghostly residents before jetting off.
Fancy a blood-curdling break in Transylvania? You can fly to Bucharest from £75pp return… Icon of gothic horror fiction, Count Dracula, was based on a very real historical figure with a thirst for blood. Vlad the Impaler ruled with an iron fist and his connections to Castelul Bran, a medieval castle tucked away in Romania’s Carpathian mountains, have lent it the ominous nickname ‘Dracula’s Castle‘.
A range of tours are available, lifting the lid on its dark history – and when you’re finished, you can head back to Bucharest and venture into its Old Town, where Halloween décor pervades every corner and locals perform age-old rituals to protect themselves from the ‘Evil Eye’.
The spookiest Halloween destinations to fly to from Manchester Airport:
Monster hunting in Germany – Fly to Frankfurt from £217pp return
A dark, imposing fortress on a hillside overlooking the city of Darmstadt lent its name to arguably the most influential gothic horror novel of all time. Frankenstein Castle, just outside Frankfurt, has been standing for more than 800 years – and aside from Mary Shelley’s monster, has multiple other myths, legends and purported hauntings attached to it, including a sleeping dragon and a coven of witches.
Just to the south is the Black Forest – where visitors can throw themselves into the world of the Brothers Grimm, and see the landscapes that inspired classic German fairy tales like Hansel & Gretel and Rumpelstiltskin.
A bone-chilling sight under the streets of Paris – Fly to Paris – Charles de Gaulle from £47pp return
Beneath the ‘City of Light’ lies a dark secret. In the 1790s, after the French Revolution, Paris’ cemeteries were quite literally overflowing – and a radical solution was required. The remains of almost six million people were exhumed and moved to the newly-created Paris Catacombs, a network of mausoleums housed in ancient stone quarries under the city’s streets.
More than half a million people now visit the Catacombs each year, which are accessed near the Barrière d’Enfer (or ‘Gate of Hell’), where a sign warns them they are entering ‘The Empire of Death.’ Inside, they’re greeted by hundreds of thousands of stacked skulls, arms and leg bones lining the corridors in intricate patterns. After you’ve finished here, take a trip to the Palace of Versailles – where, in an infamous ‘timeslip’ incident, two tourists visiting its gardens claimed to have found themselves suddenly surrounded by people in period costume, who abruptly vanished.
Haunted hotels and Headless Horsemen in the Big Apple – Fly to New York from £374pp return
In their modern form, many Halloween customs can be traced to the United States – so where better to spend spooky season than one of America’s most iconic cities? Few cities can claim to go bigger on Halloween than the Big Apple, and there’s heaps of ghoulish stuff to see and do – from the Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village, to a light display themed on Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas in the New York Botanical Garden.
Top off your trip with a stay in the haunted Bowery Hotel – where guests have reported being deep in conversation with fellow visitors in old-fashioned clothing, who then disappear mid-sentence. You could even take a day trip to Sleepy Hollow, a small rural community in upstate New York and the setting for Washington Irving’s novel Legend of Sleepy Hollow, where a headless horseman terrorises local villagers.
Other Halloween destinations to fly to from Manchester Airport:
- Deserted jails and wailing banshees in haunted Ireland – Fly to Dublin from £28pp return
- Party the night away in Budapest – Fly to Budapest from £59pp return
- Executions, apparitions and the Black Death in Prague – Fly to Prague from £69pp return
- Satanic rituals in Malaga‘s haunted mansion – Fly to Malaga from £94pp return
- Soak up Europe’s biggest Halloween festival – Fly to Derry from £35pp return
- Celebrate the Day of the Dead in Mexico – Fly to Cancun from £344pp return
Search for Halloween flights on the Manchester Airport website here.