No trip to Buenos Aires would be complete without a bit of Evita. So before departing to the airport, I had time to visit one of Trip Advisor’s top attractions – a cemetery!! It sounds weird, I know but this is not any old cemetery. It’s the one where Eva Peron is buried. I’m not quite sure what the difference between a cemetery and a graveyard is but back home, an image of gravestones scattered around the grass outside a church springs to mind. Not here though. The Recoleta cemetery is full (and I mean crammed) with over 6,000 mausoleums housing the remnants of entire families of the great and the good of Argentina.
Clearly, mausoleums are significant status symbols.
and often built for or by ego maniacs!
Some of these buildings are hundreds of year old but others are quite new.
This one, for example, was designed and built recently by one of Argentina’s leading architects . Hopefully, in time it will merge better with the surroundings!
Being in a city centre where space is limited, I’m not quite sure how such new structures are accommodated. On top of some old ones, perhaps? Most of these are solid affairs but a few have, in what I think is quite a macabre way, glass doors so the coffins of the recently deceased are on show to any passer by (e.g. me).
I can only assume that when the next generation start popping their clogs, the existing coffins are moved to the crypts which lie beneath all these buildings.
Eva Peron was Eva Duarte before her marriage. So she is buried with other members of her family in one of the less ostentatious edifices.
She was only 32 when she died and represented here merely by a small plaque on the right hand side of the family tomb although is clearly fondly remembered by some as this mausoleum was the only one I saw with flowers.
And at the base there are references not only to her more commonly used name
but also to Admiral Brown the Irish born founder of the Argentine navy!
As cities go, Buenos Aires must be up there with the best. Despite all the traffic and pollution problems, it’s got style, elegance, beautiful buildings and lovely open spaces. But I felt that, for me, it was missing something. Maybe it’s not the best place for the solo traveller. Or maybe my enjoyment was curtailed due to my current diet of Immodium! Who knows but I’m glad I made the visit. So another tick in the box
Time to move on and practice my Portuguese skills. Mmmmmm!
Phileas
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