Campo Grande Park in Valladolid, Spain

Campo Grande Park in Valladolid, Spain appears to be a serene nature haven, with peacocks, red squirrels, and mature elm and other trees. But this modest space—about ten percent the size of Central Park—holds a darker history. According to Atlas Obscura, the park was the site of the Spanish Inquisition's Autos de Fe in the sixteenth century, public sentencing ceremonies where the convicted faced execution by burning. Originally called the Field of Truth, it later became Campo de Marte after hosting military duels and exercises. By the mid-seventeenth century, King Charles the Second commissioned neoclassical architect Francisco Antonio Valzanía to redesign it as a landscaped garden, complete with fountains and sculptures, transforming the site of inquisitorial horrors into a public refuge.

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