The Abandoned Town with a Ghost Mansion in the Center rotting away (Everyone Left)

Hidden deep in the hills of northern Italy lies a fortress nearly a thousand years old. Castello di Pomaro has stood since the 1100s, surviving wars, nobles, decline, and revival. Today, its gates are locked and its halls are silent, abandoned through scandal, and left to linger in an uneasy stillness. It's a masterpiece. The outside's a masterpiece. The inside is a masterpiece. I have no idea where we are, explorers. We just entered another small town, and I mean, this is really small. I mean, everyone knows each other, and the only people we've been seeing are some of the oldest people ever, that are barely able to walk. If this is not doable, I'm just cutting the video, we're ending right here, but there is a very huge castle on top of this hill that was once used for a defense mechanism, like a defense fortress, but also a residential area where they wanted to live. They were a very rich family. They even had a moat and stuff around it, and it was on top of this hill. Now, that was done in the 12th century. It's been still here since the 12th century, and in 1950, the Italian government put this place under historical landmark, as in no one could touch it ever or knock it down. So it's going to be here for probably forever. That's like a watchtower, huge clock tower, beautiful area. I mean, it's all completely dead here. Now, can we get in? I don't know. Look at this. I mean, it looks like no one can see us. Holy. Holy. Obviously, we're going to go inside, but first, we have to show this beautiful, magnificent, luxurious courtyard, but they still try to maintain this. Man, that must have been a beautiful fountain here at one time, though. Just to, you know, look out. I'll step back a bit. I'm guessing there was like a water fountain here. Probably one of my best. This might be one of the best abandoned places on earth. I don't know. I mean, we cover so much, and this is why we travel and go the distance around the world, and not just explore in the US, is to see everything. I think I have the most abandoned videos around the world, like around the world, in the world, on YouTube. Wow. I love this so much. As you can see, this was once a water fountain, too. The water was overflowing, coming out of there and dripping down. You would sit here and relax with the This must lead all the way out to town. This was the gate to the backyard, which is not even in town anymore. You're out of the town. I mean, this looks fake, for real. This looks fake. It's so good. Look at this, and the best part about this is this castle stands strong on top of this hill, overlooking the whole village of Italy. And we can look down, and you're going to see everything. And back in the day, they would have been what, like the peons, if we're going way back, 12th century. I mean, everyone would look up and see their house and be like, wow, I wish I was in it. You see this place from all over Italy. Well, you know, where we are. I'm just using that as an example. But it's like, come on. Every one of them looks up and sees the big daddy right here. I love that, you know, the vines and everything is growing out of the castle. There's gonna be like 30 freaking rooms in this thing. This is a huge place. Yeah, all right, look, this is it, right here. Oh my god, we are walking through something from the 12th century explorers. Castello di Pomaro rises from the hills of Monferrato with roots deep in the 12th century. Built in the 1100s, it was a medieval fortress designed to guard the land, its towers and stone walls standing as both shield and a warning. What do they call the ceilings? Like, like arches? Save money, they took a pallet painted it white and use that as like a little gate. There should be some sort of like stairway that goes up. Does this go up? Where the **** are we going? We are underground right now. All the power don't work, nothing works. Dude, this is actually nuts. Yeah, I feel like we're in like Romania with this stuff. This is super old. This was the old kitchen room. I don't even know where this actual door was, bro. I don't know, but it's massive. Is this the carriage for the old horses? Look at that. Oh my god, bro, we're in Oblivion. We're in the game Skyrim and Oblivion. Yeah, it's totally original, probably 1890s or something. So I wonder how many floors, maybe like three floors. They use high ceilings, so I can't think of any more floors than that. Oh, ----. ------- bad. I guess up here to the real castle, bro. This is the big ******* reveal. This is it. Oh my god. This is the best. Who built this? By the 1400s and 1500s, the castle's purpose began to change. The age of constant war was fading, and Pomaro shifted from a military stronghold into a noble residence. Its halls grew quieter, its defenses less urgent, yet the weight of its past never left the stone. I think this is actually the best abandoned staircase that's abandoned. They kept re-renovating it, too. In the 16th century, they re-renovated it, and I know they hired famous artists to come here and re-renovate it, so maybe they did this one. Wow, how smooth is this? Oh my god, it feels like plastic, like it's fake. Only the finest material to create this. Just moving along to the next room. Again, that elegant, luxurious vibe with the painted ceilings. It's a masterpiece. The outside's a masterpiece, the inside is a masterpiece. It's incredible, and that's why the government of Italy said, hey, in 1950, we have to preserve this, and they kept it just as a historical landmark. By the 1800s, Pomaro had fallen into decline. The fortress no longer commanded soldiers or nobles. Instead, its towers looked out over silence, its courtyards overgrown, its future uncertain. I'm just gonna keep walking. I feel like, honestly, I feel like we are in a video game, though. There are so many rooms, but I can hear Dave talking, because it's so silent, and the whole place echoes because the ceiling and the, you know, the material that this place is made out of. Like, what's in here? Absolutely nothing. Look how this one is, this dining hall, or maybe a ballroom, but this drapes so low. Look how they drape it all the way down to hang right over us, and I like this ceiling a lot, because they have the figures of the lady holding the harpoon, I think. It could be really wrong. It's all about the design work here. There might not be anything in here, but when you show the outside, and you show the history, and the fact that it's on top of a freaking hill, this is one of the best spots I've ever done in Italy. Even this is cool. Is this wallpaper? It's painted or something. I don't, yeah, it's definitely painted. I love the mirrors, how they trimmed it with, like, this gold. I mean, it looks brass now. I think it's super old. You can see the dust on it. You know, it's supposed to look like that, but brighter. In 1929, architect Vittorio Tornelli restored parts of the castle, breathing life back into its crumbling frame. Then, in 1950, the Italian state declared it a cultural treasure, placing it under official protection. On paper, it was saved. In reality, it was simply preserved in silence. We added the natural sunlight in. That's awesome. Oh my god, now you can see how far we are up. Oh my gosh. Huh? Oh, you think that's from, like, just over the years? Yeah. Maybe in, like, 100 years, it starts collapsing. Like, people can definitely get lost. And if you're wondering why it's converted, like, with bathrooms like this, it's because they took it, you know, so many years ago, and they turned it into, like, a museum for people to study the history and the architecture, and because there's so much to it. So they were allowing people to come here at one point. Now, if I'm not mistaken, this one or one, actually, no, it's not. We haven't even been to the main section yet, but we are coming up to something incredible. Holy crap. Look at this. You're here at What Is Up, Explorers. I'd like to thank today's sponsor, you guys, for my viewers, everyone who's been donating monthly on Patreon, and for those who have been buying my merch on the Exploring Crew store. So, because I don't get a lot of brand deals like other channels do, I use the money that you guys give me to help support my team costs and my production costs. 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Again, you guys are the real sponsor and also my favorite sponsor. Let's get back into the video. It's like we don't need a bed or furniture or items left here. It's just the rooms. You gotta remember it's all hand-painted. You just stop and stare. We feel so little here. Like we're ants. Like Attack on Titan giants made this. All right, Dan, what bird is that, huh? It's like a peacock. All right, maybe it is a peacock. Guys, comment down below. Is that a peacock? The most recent chapter came in 2022 when Italian authorities seized the castle in a massive tax evasion case. A fortress once built for war was now reduced to paperwork. Its fate decided not by battles, but by numbers on a ledger. Since then, Pomaro has remained abandoned, caught in silence once again. Now, this room is super dope because we have a whole ass pool. Look at this. This pool table is sick, but they added like these things, these emblems on. Oh my God, look. For the mouth. That's dope. They have them on all the sides. It's the details like this, though, that makes this place special. But I have yet to see an upstairs. Maybe there's not an upstairs. You got the angels playing the violin up there. Again, another beautiful chandelier. Oh, this is the scoreboard. I don't even know how to read this. Like for real, though, I don't. Whoa. This is like the hall of knowledge, we'll call it the hall of knowledge. I mean, these things have been placed here sitting for maybe, you know, years. I mean, look at the condition. The books are like they're they're just dirty. The whole creation of us and humanity could be inside these. This was their like chapel to pray. Look. So it's all like Bible, Christianity and different things like that here. That's what we didn't know. Now we know. And there's a secret door down there. I'll probably take that later. Now we're on the edge of the castle, the other side. And are these doors? Yeah, they're doors. They're blocked out. Sometimes you don't even know they're doors. Everything is so well blended in. We'll go around in a big square and then we'll figure out how to get upstairs. Oh, I think that's how you get upstairs. OK, so we need to go in a big square regardless. Finally, the first small room. Now I feel back to normal. No tall ceilings. This must have been maybe a real ballroom. I don't know. Nah, no, it's not. I like the vibe in here, though. They redid the floors. Redid the floors. And then I don't know, maybe they have to redo the ceiling here. They didn't do it. You get completely lost in here. Like there's like 100 rooms here. Like, OK, that was a door that was locked. So where does this all go? Let's find out. This is original to the house way back when they added plumbing and, you know, running water. OK, there's the upstairs. OK, I don't know if Dave's up here yet, but we're going up. Now we're in the main part. So I can't even describe how I'm feeling because I feel like I'm really in something out of a movie. And as we get taller up, the ceiling is actually shrinking a little bit. Just a little bit. All right, still, still massive. Yeah, I hear Dave again. This is a unique room. You got a massive chest, an old 1950s fridge, the Hoovermatic. I like that. He actually got up here from the spiral staircase, so he got up there from that way. I didn't know you can go up into it, but they blocked it. This is look at this door. I would never have even known that's a door for the most part. Let's keep going. We want to work our way through this whole place. And again, as you come up, as I expected to, it's going to be a lot more, you know, rugged, you know, rugged down, not as fancy or cool. And that's just natural. Every museum I go to or castles or, you know, places usually get like boring or as we go up and they split this room in two. And it makes sense because remember, this is their family's bedrooms. So they had to make less rooms from, you know, up here as the first floor is for more people and the parties and hanging out and relaxing. They turn these into actual bedrooms. This is one of the oldest places I've ever explored on this channel. And it's a legit castle on top of the freaking hill. I can't get over that. Oh, a sewing machine. I should have known that. All their clothes, their linens, their bedsheets, everything would be in these. And you can see the different wallpaper over the years. It went from no wallpaper to wallpaper to even paintings. You can see some, you know, remains of this right here. This is just like a chest, is it? Nothing's in it. That's like one of the families, I think suitcases actually. It's like all the birds making nests. These floors are really cool. Look at this. Oh, there was a bird in the nest. There's our exit. Oh yeah. I didn't mean to when I was, she just fell off quick, but hopefully she'll come back. Nah, she will. What does it say? I don't know, but we can maybe translate it. Well, no, what you said, it looks like it was signed 1950s. August 1955. Yep. Five years after it was created to the 1950s. Yeah, 1950s. It was a monument. Oh, so this was their wardrobe room. Yeah, so this little white porcelain buckets wet your feet. White porcelain basins, which is probably like that bathtub in that room, you know, the little small white thing. Yep. So this would look, Grimsman gold baby soap dispenser. So this is probably like the list for the servants and stuff. That's so cool. So I promise you this is exactly what it was. So the servant would have put the warm jug of water in and she'd pour it in your bedpan and then she'd bath you or you'd bath yourself. Dang, back in the day was wild. I promise you that's what it was. It got dark, but then look at this hallway. This hallway just feels like it's from The Shining and those two girls are going to approach it, but at the same time it feels magical. Let's go inside here. This actually has the bedrooms with the beds. Oh my God, wait, it goes up even higher. We'll have to check that out too. Here we go back to where we started and I go through that door and then we're going to go upstairs again, but we are getting really high up. What's drawing us here? Oh, the spiral staircase. No wonder why we felt it, right? You guys felt it. This beautiful spiral staircase, the best part of the whole mansion is right here because of that thing. And it is amazing. Ooh, I like this room. So my favorite color is green if you guys don't know. So I actually like this wallpaper a lot. There is so much here. Dude, back in high school, just so you guys know, I used to breakdance. If you guys don't know, I did a lot of breakdancing for like eight years of my life. These floors are some of the best floors to breakdance on ever, but I hurt my shoulder because I slept wrong. So if I turn my neck like this, I can only go that far. So I'm hurt today or else I would show you guys. I owe you guys now. I have to show you guys later because I would love to. Last part, going into maybe the tower, watchtower. I don't even know. Let's see. Oh, it's probably sealed or it's trapped with bats. Nope. It's not locked, but it's really small. The hell is that? A lot of cobwebs in here. What does this go? Oh my God. It's nothing. More up, more up. All right. We reached the top of the castle. We're in the watchtower. Actually the watchtower. Look. Oh my God. I'm never going to forget this explore. Guys, we're in the watchtower. Dave, come up here. Full on watchtower. This was also built and used during the war with the Spanish. I think the French, I don't remember, but definitely the Spanish. And like they use this as a defense force and we're on it. Look at the town. Look at the freaking town. Oh my God. I can't get over this. Who was the last person to go to the top top? This is as close as I'll get. I want people to see me up here. Look at the roof. This is a surreal experience today. All right. One time. Oh my God. I'm scared up here. Shit. Oh my gosh. What an experience, huh? Huge shout out to my Urban Legend tier Patreon supporters and beyond. Bobby Olmsted, Melissa Valine, Haunted1821, Jason, Voices from Beyond, Skyler Guidry, Mr. Anderson, Echo, Molly and Emily, Tim F aka Chef.