Hanging out at the Cemetery

We spent time today at the Recoleta area of the city where there is a large cemetery with hundreds of famous people buried, presidents, generals, Eva Peron, etc.  The tombs vie with each other to show who is more important.   The graves are not all that old.  The cemetery was founded around the 1850s. We found very few recent burials (at least that we could see plaques for).  There was one outside wall that was totally run down with broken wall niches that had a burial from 2013, but for the most part they were decades or more old.

Entrance to the cemetery.  Rest in Peace.

Map of the cemetery grounds with over 100 famous graves numbered and marked.

View of the cemetery from above (from the monastery museum next door).  The crypts come in all sizes and shapes.

The layout is mostly on a grid with a few diagonal paths that run through it.  You get a sense of the size of it looking down one of the paths.

Each crypt is basically a little house with a door and often with windows to look in.  There are often little alter-like areas inside, sometimes with caskets visible.  Then there are narrow stairs going down underground where additional bodies are buried.  Each crypt is for a whole family.  I would guess at least 8-10 and possibly more are buried in each crypt.  There were some child sized caskets visible.  We also saw some cremation boxes (not urns), but not as many.

We noticed in one place in the back of the cemetery there was a building that held what looked like a hidden service elevator going down.  It was large enough to hold a casket.  We became very curious if under each individual crypt was actually a network of connected tunnels where the undertaker could move the caskets from the elevator to the crypt.

This rough cut stone one was pretty unique.  The ferns growing naturally on it were nice.

Eva (wife of President Juan Peron) was buried in her family crypt (Duarte).

There were tons to beautiful and different sculptures throughout the cemetery.

This was one of a general with a statue soldier standing guard.

This one of a young lady and her dog was particularly nice.

Many of the notables who were buried here were early academics, profesores, or attributed writers or poets.

Many of the crypts had multiple plaques like this one.  It is a memorial plaque placed on the tomb on the 100 year anniversary of his death.  You had to look carefully to determine if you were reading when he died or when a memorial plaque was placed on the tomb.

One of the 'alter' areas inside a crypt.  There were quite a few with pretty stained glass.

This one was one of the tallest structures we saw.  You can't tell from the shot above, but the underside of the dome is covered in beautiful mosaic tiles (see below).  There were not many crypts that had mosaic decor.

Some of the crypts were very run down, with broken glass, rotten wood, or rusted iron gates.

We saw a number of cats around the grounds.  This one was enjoying the sun.  Somebody had put out little cat food nuggets on some of the steps for the kitties.