Being a highly suggestive place, cemeteries are growing as a tourist destination for decades.
There are many reasons to visit a cemetery as a tourist and different cemeteries show
different reasons. For instance, there are cemeteries mostly visited for the famous
personalities who rest there, others particularly notable for their architecture and other ones
that aren't really modern cemeteries but an ancient graveyard with incalculable historical
value. Some of them include various points of interests, others are completely unique.
We tried to make the most complete list of cemeteries you can visit in Europe: here is our
top 10!
1) Visit the Père Lachaise in Paris
We can't help but start with the most famous and visited one: the Père Lachaise Cemetery in
Paris. Although Pere Lachaise is located inside a beautiful park and shows a variety of
funerary art styles, from ancient mausoleums and gothic graves to Art Deco monuments and
even Egyptian pyramids, the main reason people come here is the guests.
Père Lachaise is a real hall of fame where you can pay your respects to great artists and
personalities from all ages and all countries. People such as Chopin, Moliere, Jim Morrison
Edith Piaf, Rossini, and Oscar Wilde.
Every year, hundreds of people honor the memory of these great personalities, often in a
physical way like with the Oscar Wilde's grave that is full of kisses' marks.
You can book a tour of Pere Lachaise on Globol here.
2) Explore the Monumental Cemetery in Milan
More than a simple cemetery, the Monumental Cemetery in Milan is like an open-air
museum. Here you will find some of the greatest sculptors of the 20th century making great
art about death in the form of tombs, mausoleums, and monuments.
From an architectural point of view, both Romanic and Gothic styles are were represented in
Monumental Cemetery. The unmissable landmark here is the Famedio, which means "hall of
fame". This Neo-medieval building's purpose is to celebrate all the great personalities linked
to the city of Milan. On its walls, you can read the names of Leonardo Da Vinci, Saint
Augustin, and Luchino Visconti, among the others. The Famedio is not a simple monument:
it includes a spacious crypt where you will find the majestic tomb of great Italians such as
Alessandro Manzoni, Guido Crepax and Giorgio Gaber.
On Globol you can book a guided tour.
3) Have a stroll in Cross Bones, London
This peculiar former cemetery is also known as the Single Woman’s Churchyard and it is
said that over 15,000 bodies rest in peace here. Most of them are prostitutes and other
outcasts of society.
The Cross Bones is located Redcross Way in Southwark, and it speaks volumes about the
dark past of London and the human rights in general.
This is was the place where prostitutes and other sinners, de facto excluded from Christian
funeral, were buried. "Single Woman" is the polite and bourgeoise way to call them.
The sad story of Cross Bones graveyard is closely tied to the history of London’s first
red-light district and the Winchester Geese (women licensed by the church to work in the
local brothels).
Now it is a memorial garden dedicated to all the victims of this kind of existence. It hosts
monthly candlelit vigils as well as various artistic events.
4) Discover the Islamic Cemetery in Vorarlberg
The small Austrian region of Vorarlberg hosts a really unique place. It's the Islamic Cemetery
designed by Bernardo Bader Architect who win two awards for its work.
Located near the Swiss and Lichtenstein borders, outside of urban spaces and into nature,
the Islamic Cemetery is a really suggestive place to visit. Its shape remembers five fingers
from an aerial view and the aesthetic is a fortunate blend of traditional architecture and new
contemporary aesthetics.
The complex also includes prayer rooms, as well as various areas designed for Muslim
funerary rituals. One of the most visually impressing features is the kiblah wall facing Mecca, which is covered by magnificent oak latticework.
5) Enter the Myra Necropolis in Turkey
Myra was an ancient city with a lot of history on its back. Greeks, Romans, Byzantine Greek, and Ottoman Greeks left their trace in this area so Myra has a lot of interesting ruins.
But the most visited and impressive are surely the rock-cut tombs.
Experts say the structure is tracing back to 4th century BC when Myra was a Lycian city. The necropolis is split into two burial sites and show us what ancient Lycian culture was, their technical skills as well as their customs and beliefs.
The site is so amazing because it's entirely carved into cliff faces. You will love these evocative tombs, designed to look like houses or temples, and most of them are decorated with reliefs representing mythological scenes or the biography of the deceased.
6) Disembark on San Michele Island
Venice has its own monumental cemetery and, as you can expect from a city formed by islands, it is an island too.
San Michele Island is located between the island of Murano and the Cannaregio district. In the past, it was known for Chiesa di San Michele in Isola, the first Renaissance church in Venice and the relative monastery. During the 19th century, local authorities did decide to build a cemetery there because was considered unhealthy burial on the mainland.
The place bears a calm and peaceful atmosphere, with its lovely gardens, scattered with cypress trees.
But what makes this cemetery a real attraction is, once again, the greatness of its "hosts". National and international names are resting in peace in San Michele Island, people such as Ezra Pound, Igor Stravinsky, Joseph Brodsky, Jean Schlumberger, Christian Doppler, Luigi Nono, Catherine Bagration, and Franco Basaglia.
Being a Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant cemetery, there is also a variety of aesthetics represented here, ranging from beautifully ornate sculptures to modern, minimalist tombstones and gorgeous mausoleums.
7) Explore Stockholm’s Woodland Cemetery in Sweden
A few kilometers south to Stockholms, there is a wonderful place called Skogskyrkogården or simply Woodland Cemetery if you are not even able to spell Swedish words.
Stockholm’s Woodland Cemetery is another "art cemetery", designed by two great Swedish architects Gunnar Asplund and Sigurd Lewerentz. It is considered a way to blend the aesthetic of Nordic Classicism with a more functionalistic approach to architecture.
and an outstanding example of how nature and architecture can exist in perfect harmony. More than just a graveyard, this is a place where nature and architecture come together smoothly and it is protected by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. People don't come here just to pay respect to the deceased or to visit the monuments but also for strolling, contemplation, and birdwatching.
Among the celebrities buried here, we can name the great actress Greta Garbo and Per Yngve Ohlin, singer of the seminal Swedish band "Mayhem".
8) Visit the Old Jewish Cemetery in Josefov in Prague
Josefov, also known as the Jewish Ghetto, is one of the oldest districts in Prague and one of the oldest European ghettos altogether.
The Old Jewish Cemetery was established in the middle of the 15th and it is one of Prague’s most unique and engaging attractions.
You will find yourself surrounded by over12,000 crumbling gravestones from different ages, packed together into this compact plot of land, but it is said that more than 100,000 Jews are buried here.
This gives to the place, which is also Europe’s oldest surviving Jewish cemetery, a mysterious atmosphere, almost uncanny.
You can book a tour of Josefov in Prague here on Globol.
9) Roam around the City of the Dead in Russia
In the heart of North Ossetia, on the Russian border with Georgia, there is a really strange place. It is known as the City of the Dead and its the ancient graveyard of the small town of Dargavs.
Like the Myra one, it's a necropolis build to resemble a little village. Myth and legends surround the area which comprises 99 tombs, not one less, not one more, a magical number.
Some accounts say that every man who dares to enter the City of the Dead would never come out alive, so locals tend to avoid the place. There are also a few tourists because the area is not easy to reach. So, if you are brave and willing, you can live a pretty authentic experience there.
10) Admire Newgrange, Ireland
Our last graveyard is one of the oldest and most impressive structures built by our ancestors.
Dating back to 3200 B.C., Newgrange is older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids.
It is located less than an hour away from Dublin and consists of an enormous semi-circular mound encircled by kerbstones engraved with Megalithic art.
It's not just a monument. Inside the structure, there is a 19-meter-long passage leading to a chamber with three alcoves and a corbelled roof.
Archeologists find human cremated remnants during excavations, but they believe this wasn't a simple graveyard and it used to be the center of ancient forgotten rituals, being aligned with the rising sun on the winter solstice.
Like Stonehenge, Newgrange is surrounded by myth and legends and its fame is growing in recent years.
The site is always open to the public but access to the chamber during the solstice, when the rising sun illuminates the room revealing the carvings inside, is only reserved for a lucky few and decided by lottery.