City of the Dead

Final resting place for many of Argentina’s most famous and wealthy citizens, the Recoleta Cemetery is an amazing place to visit, one of my favorite places in Buenos Aires.

It’s arranged like a miniature city, with tree-lined boulevards, side streets and back alleys, all packed with monuments and mausoleums of all sizes and styles.

Each mausoleum is owned by a family, and holds the remains of anywhere from a handful to a few dozen of its deceased members, in chambers both above and below ground. Many of the larger ones also have stained-glass windows and altars or chapels for burial services.

The maintenance and upkeep is the family’s responsibility, and many have fallen into severe disrepair, which makes for some macabre sights.

The cemetery has been full for many years, but the mausoleums are occasionally sold, at which time the selling family removes all the remains of their relatives to make way for the new owners, who often remodel the units before using them. Kind of like condos for the dead, I guess.

Walking around this place – especially on a gloomy overcast day – is a strange experience. Besides the fact that there are well over 100,000 dead bodies all around you, there are all these statues looking at you from their perches.

Here you can find the tombs of some of Argentina’s most famous and influential figures – presidents, doctors, generals – people you also find on the nation’s currency and in the names of streets in just about every city in the country.

Surprisingly, the cemetery’s most internationally famous resident has one of the hardest tombs to locate – Evita Peron is buried in her family’s modest mausoleum, tucked away on one of the side streets and only distinguished by a small plaque and some flowers placed by tourists.

We paid a couple of visits to the cemetery during our stays in Buenos Aires – you can find all of the photos here. Don’t miss it if you’re ever in town!

Tagged as: Argentina