El Cementerio de Recoleta in Buenos Aires
Tour Argentina's City of Angels to Visit Evita Perón's Grave
Aug 7, 2009
El Cementerio de Recoleta is one of the most visited places in Buenos Aires. This eternal resting place with 5000 sepulchres is a wonderful synthesis of history, art, religion and death, and serves as a tribute to Argentina's rich and famous.
Buying a Grave at El Cementerio de Recoleta
Around the 1800s the terrain belonged to the adjacent Basílica de Nuestra Pilar. The government, in need of land for a cemetery, bought it and even though initially it was only for Catholic Argentinians, it is now a resting place for people of all nationalities and religions.
A grave at the City of Angels is bought for eternity; it can never be taken from you. Even when the yearly fee for maintenance [or tax] is not paid, the grave will not be cleared. All the government will do in the course of time, is to shore up the tomb to prevent collapse. The cemetery numbers several tombs from the 1860s which have never been maintained and of which nobody has a clue to whom they belong.
El Cementerio de Recoleta is full, there is no more space for new graves. It is possible, however, to buy an existing grave and for an average tomb 25,000 US dollars is paid. But what if the owner is unknown and the tombs appear abandoned? Argentina has a solution, similar to the way one can obtain a piece of fallow land whose owner is invisible and unknown. If somebody pays the maintenance tax during twenty years, and if during those years no one claims the grave, the tax payer becomes the rightful owner.
In this case the new owner has the responsibility to clear the graves himself. The number of graves in a tomb can add up to twenty. This cemetery hardly has one-man graves dug into the earth. The majority consists of mausolea, sometimes with cellars, which have space for fifteen to twenty coffins.
El Cementerio de Recoleta: the City of Angels
City of Angels sounds nicer than City of the Dead. It may well be possible there are more angels than dead. El Cementerio de Recoleta appears to be more of an open-air art gallery than a cemetery. Tombs and mausolea are extravagantly, sometimes ostentatiously, decorated with sculptures, plaques and stained glass windows.
Inside the mausolea there often is a small altar where flowers may be deposited, and one or more walls most likely contain stained glass windows that colour the otherwise dark rooms. Small cherubs or seraphs look down from the entrance or decorate the upper edges of the mausolea.
To truly admire the angels, one has to have a strong back and neck because the majority of angels sits atop the mausolea. In large numbers they stand there, trumpets at the ready, or they represent the Angel of Death when carrying a sandglass. Often angels are accompanied by sculptures of weeping women, sometimes kneeling down at the foot of a cross.
After a while one starts to wonder if one hasn't seen a sculpture before and the mausolea start to repeat themselves. This is not so strange considering the fact that in the old days the sculptures were ordered from a catalogue and shipped from France, Italy or Spain – resulting in the same sculptures appearing on different mausolea.
Argentina's Famous at El Cementerio de Recoleta
About seventy mausolea have been declared national historic monuments. Many of them contain famous politicians or heroes of the Independence. Among them are General Sán Martín, the leader in Argentina's struggle for independence, and Evita Perón – the latter has the honour of occupying the most visited grave.
Guided Tours at El Cementerio de Recoleta
One can easily spend hours wandering through Buenos Aires' oldest and most aristocratic cemetery. Taking a guided tour is recommended and is free of charge. The guide gives background stories of the deceased, and in this way also unfolds parts of Argentina's history.
- Address: Calle Junín 70, at the north side of Buenos Aires.
- Opening hours: daily from 7am-18pm.
- Guided tours in Spanish: Tue-Sun 09.30am, 11am, 14pm, 16pm.
- Guided tours in English: Tuesday and Thursday 11am.
In case of rain the guided tours at El Cementerio de Recoleta are cancelled.
Readers may also be interested in forms of public transport in Buenos Aires, as well as in the treasures of the city's banking district, or the Buenos Aires' lesser-known churches.
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