As strange as it sounds, one of Buenos Aires’ top attractions is a cemetery! It was established in 1822 and is located in the lovely Recoleta neighbourhood. It is the final resting place of many rich and famous Argentinians including presidents, important politicians, military generals and of course Evita. There are over 6400 grave sites covering about 13.5 acres here. But that in itself is really just part of the story…..

Until 1822, it was common practice for residents of Buenos Aires who passed away to be buried on the church grounds. Obviously there came a point when this needed to end due to space and hygiene concerns so the Recoleta Cemetery was established as a public graveyard on land adjacent to the church. Some Catholics families of Buenos Aires were not pleased with this development but what could they do? They could not bury their loved ones in the church yard….so how about instead of bringing the deceased to the church, they bring the church to the deceased!

Families started building chapels around their gravesites and things just kind of took off from there. Nowadays there is an astounding collection of chapels, crypts, statues and monuments jammed into the cemetery. The plots themselves seem to be of a more of less standard size but what is put on them varies wildly. There are modern buildings in marble and glass, old weathered chapels in stone, simple memorials and some crazy monstrosities. And these are not your standard one-and-done graves. These are equipped with some fairly sizeable crypts below ground level so the whole family can enjoy the afterlife together.

That may sounds a bit creepy (and some of the graves are just that!) but it is actually quite a peaceful and pleasant place to walk around. It is also really interesting to see the some of the original immigrant make-up of Buenos Aires – the family names on the graves reflect many of the nationalities that make up Argentinian society (or the Catholic part at least). I would guess that we saw as many Italian names as we did Spanish ones. There was a decent representation of French and Irish surnames as well. Probably explains why the city feels rather European.

Here are a few photos to give you a feel for the place….