I don't know if you have heard of the Reoleta Cemetery, I had not. When friends here in Bolivia heard we were going to Buenos Aries, without fail one of the first places we were told to visit was the Recoleta Cemetery. My first thought was cemeteries are usually very beautiful, but not at the top of my visit list. But we did visit mainly because Eva Peron's burial site was there. Oh my gosh, am I glad we did! First of all, it is a small city. The crypts are small houses and so very beautiful. The grounds are maintained, landscaped and well visited. Many of the crypts have fresh flowers, Eva's always has many fresh flowers. However, there are crypts that for whatever reason have had no care for many, many years as you will see in the following pictures. Needless to say these freaked both of us out! The crypts almost all have glass doors or windows in the doors so you can view the coffins inside. Carl walks up to one of the doors after we had just passed the pictures below and looked in. Now very little scares him, but I swear he squealed like a girl. He saw his reflection looking back at him. Truly it was spooky, which I am embarrassed to say, but open crypts with coffins so old you can see bones weird me out. On the other hand, for the most part the cemetery is very beautiful and a study in history and architecture. An interesting side note, there are cats everywhere. Some friendly, some not. They seemed fairly healthy and well feed. There are water spouts everywhere and they are left dripping so the cats always have plenty of water. I don't know if they are feed or left to their own devices. I saw no kittens and the cats seemed very mature, old even. Just an interesting note, I did not see any all black cats, thank heaven!

Black marble, purewhite granite, stained glass windows,brass,

and silver all very expensive and all used in these crypts.

This one, the side wall was broken out and you literally

could reach in and pull the casket out. It was dated in the

1800's. We really saw no vandalism, graffiti.

Just age deterioration.

These crypts, when you went in the front door, were little

rooms with or without caskets, then they had a stairway

going down into an underground room that was lined

with caskets.

This literally was a house, very beautiful

and must have cost a fortune.

Note that these were all small children's caskets. There

were even very small chests that had to be for pets. I

don't think they cremated back then.

This covered many city block and is located right in

the city.

The art was so beautiful!

All a must see if you are ever in

Buenos Aries.