Hello! If you are trying for a baby, you have probably travelled somewhere and come across a place that the locals believe will grant you a child if you go and ask — haven't you?

Today the team has gathered up the ones that sit right in the middle of places you might actually visit, so you can go and make your wish. If you have been to any of them, come and tell us in the comments!

Ten places around the world to go and make your wish

1. Pura Goa Gajah — Bali, Indonesia

Pura Goa Gajah — the Elephant Cave Temple — is one of the oldest temples in Bali. Its entrance is unlike any other on the island: a rock face carved into the gaping mouth of a giant. Inside there is a sacred bathing pool, and since ancient times people have believed that if you bathe in it and drink its water you will have children one after another, year after year.

2. Yueh Hai Ching Temple — Singapore

This one is right next door in Singapore — a Taoist temple so well known for love wishes that it has earned the nickname “The Love Temple”. The way to pray here is to loop a red thread around the deity called the “Elder of Moon”, that is, Yue Lao. There are other deities to pay your respects to as well, including one for asking for children and one for success in your studies. It is a Singapore temple the single have to visit — and so do those who are not single.

3. Sainte-Anne-d'Auray — Brittany, France

St Anne was the mother of the Virgin Mary — so, the grandmother of Jesus. Legend has it that she struggled to conceive, and was already well on in years by the time she carried Mary, which is how St Anne became the patron saint of those who cannot conceive. What makes the basilica at Sainte-Anne-d'Auray special is that St Anne is said to have appeared here. Every August a festival is held where people longing for a child gather to celebrate her apparition.

4. Red Well — Wellingborough, UK

Over to England now, to the town of Wellingborough, about 130 km north of London. The Red Well is a mineral spring that has had a reputation since the Middle Ages: drink from it and the pregnancies come thick and fast. Among those who came and went home with a child were King Charles I and Queen Henrietta in 1628, and Queen Mary II in 1662. Studies of the water have found it to be high in iron — and today the people living in the town are reported to have the second-highest pregnancy rate in the UK.

5. Puno Fertility Sanctuary — Chucuito, Peru

The next place is a little further afield — all the way to Peru. This site is part of the ancient remains of the Inca civilisation. At first glance you might take it for a large field of stone mushrooms, but they are in fact 86 stones carved in the shape of the male organ, in sizes large and small. Women trying to conceive come here, and under the guidance of a spiritual leader they climb up onto the stones and pour chicha over them — the traditional Peruvian corn beer.

6. The Leaning Virgin, Basilique Notre-Dame de Brebières — Albert, France

This sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus stands on top of the tower of the Basilique Notre-Dame de Brebières, completed in 1897. During the First World War, in 1915, the church and its tower were badly damaged by German shelling and the statue tipped over and hung down. It was rebuilt and restored in 1929, and today it stands upright and gleaming gold again, just as it always did. A great many people come to this spot to ask for a child.

7. The Veiled Christ, Chapel of Sansevero — Naples, Italy

A sculpture of Christ covered by a veil so sheer it looks like real cloth — when in fact the whole thing was carved from a single block of marble, by the hand of Giuseppe Sanmartino in 1753. It stands in the Sansevero Chapel in Naples, Italy, and for hundreds of years now, every year, great numbers of people have come to ask this sculpture for a child.

8. The trees of Ta Prohm — Siem Reap, Cambodia

Ta Prohm has stood since somewhere between the end of the 12th century and the beginning of the 13th, built in the reign of Jayavarman VII, a devout follower of Mahayana Buddhism. It is a beautiful temple, and its power comes in part from where it sits — deep in rainforest, left abandoned for hundreds of years after the fall of the Khmer empire, until green moss crept across the whole structure and giant spung trees grew out over the ruins until tree and temple look like one thing. It is these very trees that local people come to when they want a child.

9. Haesindang Park — Samcheok, South Korea

The legend here tells of a fisherman and his wife. One day the husband rowed her out so she could dive for seaweed, meaning to row back and collect her when she had finished — ordinary enough for a fishing family. But a storm blew in that day, and he could not get the boat out to her in time; she died. From then on the village could not catch a single fish, and people believed it was the anger of the dead wife. So they carved wooden phalluses, much like our own palad khik, and offered them to her by the sea — and the fishermen's catch returned to normal. Ever since, it has been a local tradition of Haesindang, held twice a year, right up to the present day. The park is also one of the places Koreans go to make wishes about children and marriage.

10. The Recumbent Effigy of Victor Noir, Père-Lachaise Cemetery — Paris, France

The last one we simply cannot leave out: the grave of Victor Noir, a writer and journalist, whose effigy has a rather conspicuous bulge. It is believed that if a woman kisses the statue of Victor Noir on the lips, rubs the raised part of his trousers and drops a flower into his hat, it will bring her great fertility and a happy sex life. More specifically — if you are looking for a beautiful lover, you should kiss Noir on the lips; if you want to get pregnant, you should touch his right foot; and if you want twins, well — he is more of a specialist than the doctor, my dear.

Ten popular places around the world to pray for a baby