Wherever you go , bushed multitude have gotten there before you . Almost every tourist destination in the world has a graveyard , from the meat of Singapore to the dusty ghost township of the American West . Whether you ’re concerned in rock ‘ n ’ roll , chronicle , art , or medicine , the nameless or the notable , cemeteries proffer lots of food for thought .
1. HOLLYWOOD FOREVER, HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA
Once the ritzy final address in the Los Angeles area , Hollywood’sCemetery of the Immortalsserved as the curtain call for Rudolph Valentino , Douglas Fairbanks , Mel Blanc ( whoseheadstone reads“That ’s all common people ! ” ) , and many others from the film industry . The cemetery afterwards fell on hard times , peculiarly after the 1994 Northridge earthquake caused extensive damage to its monuments and mausoleum . A unexampled owner wrench it around in part by showing movies on the mausoleum ’s rampart and inviting everyone to an amazingDay of the Dead celebrationthat combine artists , dancers , and instrumentalist . young permanent resident admit Dee Dee Ramone , Rozz Williams , and more . If you ’ve never inflict a necropolis full of unknown before , this is the good place in the earthly concern to take up .
2. AFRICAN BURIAL GROUND NATIONAL MONUMENT, NEW YORK CITY
The Dutch import Africans as slaves in New Amsterdam as betimes as 1626 . By the 1740s,20 % of New York ’s populationwas enslave . Until the late 1700s , the “ Negros Buriel Ground ” was the only graveyard allow for the African population in Manhattan . finally the burial ground itself was buried until 1991 , when the federal government broke ground for a newfangled function building and attain skeletons . loads of skeletons . Anthropologists figure 10 - 20,000 Africans were buried in an surface area thatcovered 6.6 acres . These day , the National Park Service staff a visitor center in the Foley Square Federal Office Building , and behind the little museum sits theAfrican Burial Ground National Monument . Some of the fire bodies were reburied with African ceremonies , but most still lie in in place beneath the streets and construction of Lower Manhattan .
3. PROTESTANT CEMETERY, ROME, ITALY
Quite possibly the most beautiful graveyard in the domain ( although the contender is fierce),Il Cimitero Acattolico di Romawas localise away by the Vatican for the burial of non - Catholicsin 1716 . The last survivingRoman - era burial pyramidtowers over a graveyard full of one - of - a - kind marble sculpture , as well as grave beautify with gold arial mosaic , stained glass , and translucent oriental alabaster . The poets John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley are buried there , among many others . Not to be missed .
4. MUNICIPAL OSSUARY, PARIS, FRANCE
There are a bunch of ossuaries ( storage vault for human bones ) that you could visit , but the most telling of all is theParis Catacombs . The skeletons of an estimate six million people were exhumed from the medieval graveyards of Paris in the 1780s , then ship by the cartload to a quarry that stretch for miles beneath the city street . Among the anonymous dead lie Lavoisier , father of modern alchemy ; Madame de Pompadour , Louis XV ’s official primary mistress ; and numberless other victims of the French Revolution . For a modest fee , you’re able to rove amongst the stacks of skull and thighbone , read appropriately pathological plaques in French . impart a flashlight .
5. FORT CANNING PARK, SINGAPORE
short remains of Singapore ’s old Christian cemetery in what is nowFort Canning park , but what survive offers plenty to mull over . After the graveyard fell into disrepair in the early 20th century , most of the sober marking were destroy . The stay legible headstones were built into the border wall in the 1970s , but the torso were left in situ . The epitaphs range from English to Dutch to Portuguese to Thai , remembering babe daughters and ship ’ master copy and attesting to the difficulties of pull round the tropical zone in the 19th century . Even though the unripened lawn looks calm , learn out for scorpion and vicious biting insects lurking in the shade . decease never seemed to sneak so close .
6. WARD CEMETERY, BODIE, CALIFORNIA
Bodie State Historic Park
is an abandoned minelaying township on the eastern edge of California . In its heyday , 10,000 citizenry lived there , and the mine ’ full haulage reached $ 30 million in gold and $ 1 million in atomic number 47 . Between the time the last working mine closed in 1947 and theghost town ’s entrance into the California state car park system in 1962 , Bodie in effect disappeared from the map . It still does n’t offer any lodgings or workings restaurants , but it does have five lovely burial ground overleap the well - continue ghost Ithiel Town in America .
7. GETTYSBURG NATIONAL CEMETERY, GETTYSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA
Over the first three day of July 1863,at least 10,000 mendied in the Battle of Gettysburg . Gettysburg represents the Confederate Army ’s eminent - urine mark during the Civil War , but it also change the way body of American military personnel were plow . Prior to 1863 , government took little province for dead soldier . Generally , summer camp followers or locals buried the dead in huge trenches on the battlefield where they fall . If grave were pronounce at all , the painted planks often did n’t survive their first winter . TheGettysburg National Cemeteryembodies the nation ’s first attempt to discover all the deadened and mark their remains .
These day , more than a million people visit the field of honor at Gettysburg each yr [ PDF ] , making it one of the most popular historic destinations in the United States . It ’s also reportedly one of the most haunted — and an first-class place to deliberate the costs of warfare .
8. POBLENOU CEMETERY, BARCELONA, SPAIN
On the eastern border of Barcelona liesPoblenou Cemetery . Divided into three section — a labyrinth of seven - story - high burial corner , a section fill with Neo - Gothic mausoleums , and the plebeian graves where the poor are buried — it would be deserving going out of one ’s way to visit Poblenou if only to examine El Beso de la Muerte , a larger - than - life carving of a skeletal end kissing the brow of a swooning youth . There ’s a window pane of reality to make your coffee - dipped churro taste that much odorous .
All photos by Loren Rhoads .
