Tuesday 26 May 2015

Visiting the Deceased

Some would say that we have something of an obsession with going to cemeteries when we travel, and that's not far from the truth.  We've been to cemeteries all over Europe.  Mind you, we've also been to fruit and vegetable markets everywhere, but that's a whole other interest - we really do like food.  We like looking at it, we like sniffing it and we like eating it (clearly....). 

Cemeteries are interesting even when you don't know anyone buried there.  Indeed, that's probably when they're most interesting, because you don't have any emotion attached to the visit.  They're very "orderly", too, and we are both big fans of things being just so.  

Before we travel, we do a fair bit of research, because we don't like to arrive in a place and waste time.  Oh, sometimes we like to spend part of a day sitting in a cafe or bar, watching people go by, but we always try to do one thing each day that's a bit interesting.  Consequently, before we travel, we look up where there are towers (for photo opportunities), where there are markets (same, same) and where there are old libraries (I really do like to look at books, even when I'm not reading them.  I like the smell of lots of books collected in one place. Odd?  Maybe.) We also always check where the nearest cemetery is, to the place we are visiting.

The Certosa di Bologna cemetery is the most beautiful cemetery we've ever visited.  Established in 1801 on the grounds of a former monastery, the building of which began in 1334, it is obviously historically significant, but even setting that aside for a moment, this is an absolutely magnificent resting place by any standards.  Now it's time for our photographs to speak for themselves.




There are kilometres of covered walkways (porticos) throughout the cemetery - there are burial sites in the walls and under the floor of these walkways.



Just one of the roads lined with graves, within the cemetery.  There are hundreds of hectares of these roads.



This huge area is just the "upstairs" - there is a whole separate floor of burial sites underground. The area of just this single building with separate levels covers probably one hundred hectares.


Family mausoleum covered in gold leaf




One mausoleum.


There are literally hundreds of separate family mausoleums.



 Chapel within the cemetery.




No comments:

Post a Comment