I hadn’t done any research about the oldest cemetery in Montevideo… odd for me. I didn’t even know its location since I was wandering around town mapless. But after a picnic lunch gazing out at the Río de la Plata, I walked past gigantic walls & thought, this must be a cemetery. It’s my destiny 🙂
Read More »montevideo: cementerio central
Argentine sources like to rank what some claim to be the top three cemeteries in the world: Père Lechaise, Staglieno & Recoleta… but I’m not sure I can agree with that list after visiting the Cimitero Monumentale in Milan. Rankings are far from impartial, so I’ll go out on a limb & say it: Recoleta has nothing on Milan’s main cemetery. It’s much bigger & packed with even more gorgeous statuary. It’s greener & extremely well maintained. One thing is for sure: if I lived in Milan, I’d start AfterLife II!
Read More »milano: cimitero monumentale
No sooner had we arrived in Lisbon & Darío wanted to go to Italy… to buy shirts. Love it. He presented the idea as: “Want to go Rome? I’ll pay for the plane ticket & the hotel.” How could I deny an offer like that? But flights didn’t work for the weekend he wanted, so I suggested Milan. I hadn’t been in about 10 years, plus it’s a world fashion capital. Suddenly we were off to Italy in May.
Read More »milano: unexpected trip
With a research trip to Lisboa quickly approaching, I’ve been trying to organize my work flow & came across these photos from 2009. This blog was on hiatus then, so I never had the chance to write about one of the most interesting cemeteries I’ve seen.
Read More »lisboa: cemitério do alto de são joão
Whenever I visit somewhere for the first time in Argentina, I automatically think about its most famous residents. There may be family plot in the local cemetery or more information to add to my Recoleta Cemetery blog. No, I’m not morbid… however cemeteries are great equalizers, filled with history & wonderful architecture. Seeing how people are remembered also helps understand what they represent today. So I began digging into the history of San Miguel de Tucumán.
Read More »tucumán: cementerio del oeste
King Carlos III of Spain declared burials inside or beside churches illegal in 1787, but the American colonies waited awhile to implement those new rules. Old habits are hard to break. Buenos Aires opened Recoleta Cemetery in 1822, but Bogotá inaugurated their first public cemetery much earlier in 1791. The same plan for that first cemetery was used for the layout of the Cementerio Central, opening in 1825.
Read More »bogotá: cementerio central