# Graveyard Tourism



## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

*Former British India capital eyes graveyard tourism *

KOLKATA, India, July 25 (Reuters) - The dead are an unlikely tourist attraction, but authorities in Kolkata are promoting the graveyards of India's former colonial capital to woo foreigners trying to trace their roots.

At one end of Park Street, lined on either sides with bars, night clubs and chic eateries, lies a walled cemetery with rows of mossy graves shaped like pyramids, pagodas and obelisks. Many of its occupants were interred during the British Raj.

A rising number of tourists, especially from Britain, who are looking for ancestors in this cemetery and a bigger one in the same neighbourhood have spurred the "tourism of the dead" drive.

"Graveyard tourism sounds gross but we want the graveyards to be part of the city's heritage tourism circuit," said Manab Mukherjee, tourism minister of West Bengal, of which Kolkata is the state capital.

He said authorities were keen to promote the graveyards as a tourist draw similar to Highgate Cemetery in London or Pere-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

And to make it easier for tourists, the Christian Burial Board (CBB), which runs four major cemeteries, has begun transferring the burial records of graveyards where many Britons were interred, some nearly 200 years ago, into a computer.

"An arduous process to digitise records of more than 100,000 burials and 20,000 graves has been undertaken so that the foreigners visiting the city to trace their ancestral roots can locate them at the click of a mouse," said Ranojoy Bose of CBB.

FINDING GRANDFATHER

Every day, at least 20 foreigners visit the cemeteries in Kolkata, formerly called Calcutta and the capital of British-ruled India from 1772 until 1911.

The city, home to about 15 million people, bears vestiges of its British past through its grand Victorian architecture, buildings, churches and cemeteries.

Michael Grover, a middle-aged Briton who now lives in Australia, says he found his grandparents' graves in Kolkata.

"It was a great feeling," said Grover, whose grandfather was a sergeant in the British army in India.

Among the many tombs are those of famous Britons like William Jones, the educationist who founded the Asiatic Society, and unorthodox poet Henry Louis Vivian Derozio.

People could search the digitised database using date of burial and, in more recent cases, names.

Arijit Mitra, whose firm is involved in the data transfer, says the process would be over by the end of the year.

"Tourists can locate the graves from abroad and plan their visits, unlike in the past when they had arrived here clueless and searched aimlessly," he said.


----------



## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

*History comes alive on Taipei graveyard tours *

TAIPEI, July 16, 2008 (Reuters) - Horror and history come to life for brave souls on tours of a Taipei graveyard that highlight hard-to-find headstones for fallen heroes of a seldom discussed, and often grim, time in the island's past.

About 150 people, including university students and visiting scholars, have followed American-born assistant professor Linda Arrigo through thousands of 20th-century gravestones on a hill behind Taipei's high-rise riddled downtown.

"People in Taiwan really don't know the history," said Arrigo, 59, who has lived in the island for 45 years. "There are many tragedies in this history and an instinct to run away or deny it. You have to go through a process of digesting it.

"Taiwanese in general are scared of graves," added Arrigo, who teaches a class titled "Experiencing Taiwan Social History" at Taipei Medical University.

Ethnic Chinese tend to avoid discussing death, but some hold elaborate rituals to honour deceased in their own families.

On her 90-minute bilingual tours which began in October, Arrigo has led groups ranging from five to more than 20 people to see the ornate graves of Muslims who fled to Taiwan from China's Communists and the chipped, barely marked headstones of 200 people who died in the "white terror" era.

In that period of the 1950s and 1960s, Taiwan executed or incarcerated some 140,000 people suspected of advocating democracy, communism or the island's independence from China.

"I feel a tremendous sadness knowing that there were people executed and buried without their families," said Timothy Fox, a former Chinese Culture University language instructor who went with five of his students on a grave tour this week.

Some tombs belong to historical figures such as Chiang Wei-shui, who went to jail under Japanese colonialism but who later became a hero for standing up for Chinese identity.

Others belong to foreigners who washed up in shipwrecks.

During this week's tour the five students, all Taiwanese, kept quiet along the walk and did not take photos as they would do on normal tours.

But during the trip, the graveyard came alive, student Lauren Lee said.

"When you see history in books, the feeling isn't the same," said the first-year English student. "This tour is an opportunity that's hard to get."


----------



## Lino (Oct 16, 2007)

For the Père Lachaise, you can find your idol's grave in its website...
http://www.pere-lachaise.com/ there's Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, etc. etc. etc.

In Portugal, you can see beautiful ones in Cemitério da Ajuda, Lisboa, and Cemitério da Lapa, in Porto. And there's a pet cemetery at the Lisbon Zoo.


----------



## weird (Feb 24, 2006)

^
Père-Lachaise is always with a considerable amount of tourists. Nice place


----------



## He Named Thor (Feb 15, 2008)

I wasn't aware that this was a new thing. 









Arlington National Cemetary, Virginia, USA


----------



## Lino (Oct 16, 2007)

And the American Cemetery in France...


----------



## Kintoy (Apr 20, 2009)

the best one is the sunken cemetery in Camiguin Island, in the Philippines.

The cemetery was part of the town that sunk after a volcanic eruption in 19th century. 

You can see the tombs below the water at about 10-15ft deep, and you can snorkel over them. Quite creepy and interesting experience.


----------



## phillybud (Jul 22, 2007)

La Recoleta in Buenos Aires, Argentina is a really beautiful, historic and interesting cemetery. Evita Peron is buried there.


----------



## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

*Calls to curb heritage site tourism
Record numbers of visitors are beginning to put at risk historic British landmarks*
26 April 2009
The Observer

The international appeal of Highgate Cemetery, the picturesque burial ground of historic figures such as Karl Marx, George Eliot, Christina Rossetti and Michael Faraday, has always been a subject of pride for those who tend the north London plot. But the status of the site on the tourist trail is beginning to take its toll.

The famous cemetery is one of a growing number of British landmarks being forced to consider steps to deter visitors, despite the welcome income that is generated. Following the inclusion of the site last month in a list of London's 100 top tourist attractions announced by the capital's mayor, Boris Johnson, some of those involved in running the cemetery have spoken out about the impact. "We are now told this is the most important cemetery in Europe and there are more people coming to see it than ever before," said Jean Pateman, chairman of the Friends of Highgate Cemetery. "But it is a busy burial ground, too, and we want to make sure every family with a grave can visit in peace. This is a sacred place."

The cemetery is divided into two parts and the older, more historic side of the cemetery can only be viewed in the company of a trained guide. Some tourists are already turned away but numbers are likely to be boosted again by publication of Her Fearful Symmetry , the new novel by American author Audrey Niffenegger which is set around the graveyard.

Historic landmarks such as the cemetery, which is a designated Unesco world heritage site, have to maintain a fine balance between limited funds and the high number of visitors. Matthew Slocombe, from the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, said getting the balance right often proved a major problem. "Ancient surfaces are precious and fragile, and with increased usage comes the risk of significant harm," he said.

Fears are growing, too, over the remote island of St Kilda, deserted by its 36 remaining natives in 1930 and now a dual world heritage site. Visitor numbers are predicted to soar from 3,000 last year to 5,000, many inspired by documentaries such as the BBC's Britain's Lost World presented by Kate Humble and Dan Snow. Last week plans were unveiled for a St Kilda visitor centre more than 50 miles away on Harris in the Western Isles. The island, 115 miles from the Scottish mainland, is a major breeding col ony for seabirds. Recent years have seen a huge increase in visiting cruise ships and day trippers from the Outer Hebrides. But the National Trust for Scotland, which manages the island, says that if numbers keep growing measures must be taken to protect ancient monuments and wildlife. Alexander Bennett, from the trust, said: "We've never actively promoted St Kilda for the reason that it is so heavily designated and fragile. It's an island full of superlatives; the biggest puffin colony in the world; the largest gannetry; the stunning scenery; the mystique."

Historic Scotland said St Kilda was subject to special management plans to protect it. This applied to other at-risk sites, such as the Antonine Wall, the turf ramparts that marked the 60km northerly frontier of the Roman empire in Britain, and Neolithic Orkney, which includes the chambered tomb of Maeshowe, the Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar.

Visitor numbers are also putting pressure on Down House in Kent, the former home of Charles Darwin. English Heritage, which runs it, said: "It is a family home, and quite intimate rooms inside the house are straining with the weight of interest. On Easter Monday, over 800 people visited. We are looking at placing limits on numbers."

At Rosslyn Chapel in Midlothian, visitor numbers soared from 40,000 to peak at 175,000 a year after it featured in the Dan Brown blockbuster and subsequent film The Da Vinci Code . It now attracts about 130,000, but is aiming for a "sustainable" 80,000 a year. "We didn't know how dramatic the effect was going to be. We managed to cope, just," said Colin Glynne-Percy, director of the Rosslyn Chapel Trust.


----------



## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

*Tombstone tours: Check out these famous boneyards *
7 October 2009

NEW YORK (AP) - Even if you don't believe in ghosts, walking through a graveyard can be a little spooky -- especially in autumn as the trees lose their leaves, flowers wither away and light fades in the late afternoon.

But cemeteries can make fascinating destinations. Sometimes a few words on a tombstone can suggest a whole life story; sometimes you can find a famous name, a beautiful work of art, or landscaping worthy of a botanical garden.

"Many people find great peace and solace in visiting cemeteries even if their own relatives are not buried there," said Janet Heywood, trustee for the Association for Gravestone Studies. "Others come to cemeteries to enjoy the history and beauty of the monuments and gravestones and/or to experience the outdoors, the plantings, the landscapes of the garden cemeteries of the nation."

Here is some information about interesting cemeteries in Boston, New York, Indianapolis, Cleveland, New Orleans, Los Angeles and Paris. Some host tours about their history or landscapes, and some offer themed events around Halloween.

BOSTON: The Old Granary Burying Ground was established in 1660, but it is most famous for its connections to the War of Independence over a century later. Here you'll find the graves of Paul Revere, who famously rode a horse in 1775 to deliver warnings about the British Army; victims of the 1770 Boston Massacre, including Crispus Attucks, a runaway slave believed to the be the first African-American killed in the war; and Declaration of Independence signers John Hancock and Samuel Adams. Others buried here include Peter Faneuil, a merchant who donated the property now called Faneuil Hall to Boston. Located on Tremont Street near the Boston Common and Park Street subway station; http://www.cityofboston.gov/FreedomTrail/granary.asp.

NEW YORK: Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery dates to 1838 and was named a National Historic Landmark for its art, architecture, landscaping and history. Its scenic winding paths are lined with trees and ponds, and its stone gates house a colony of green monk parakeets. The more than 560,000 permanent residents include Leonard Bernstein, Boss Tweed, Louis Comfort Tiffany, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, along with many ordinary Americans, from Civil War soldiers to victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. From Green-Wood's highest point, you can see the skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan across New York Harbor and even spot the Statue of Liberty. The cemetery offers tours on a regular basis but also has Halloween events with tales of murder and mayhem on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 at 1 p.m. Located on Fifth Avenue and 25th Street in Brooklyn; R subway train to 25th Street; http://www.green-wood.com.

INDIANAPOLIS: Crown Hill Cemetery's notables range from Benjamin Harrison, U.S. president from 1889 to 1893, to bank robber John Dillinger. Others buried here include Indiana poet James Whitcomb Riley, who created the Little Orphan Annie character, and Eli Lilly, founder of the pharmaceutical company. But many visitors enjoy the grounds as much as the history. At 555 acres (225 hectares), Crown Hill is the third-largest non-governmental cemetery in the country, with 25 miles (40 kilometers) of roads and an 842-foot (257-meter) hill that affords a 360-degree panoramic view of the entire Indianapolis skyline. Founded in 1863 on the site of a former tree farm and nursery, the cemetery also offers beautiful fall foliage with 4,000 trees from over 100 species. Special events include "Music of the Night" concerts with "Skeletons in the Closet" tours on Oct. 23 and 24 at 8 p.m. and on Nov. 1 at 3 p.m. (tickets, 317-920-4165). Located 700 W. 38th St., http://www.crownhillhf.org.

CLEVELAND: Perhaps the most impressive site at Lake View Cemetery on Cleveland's east side is the James A. Garfield Monument honoring the U.S. president who was assassinated in 1881. The monument includes a 180-foot (55-meter) tower, a marble statue, and mosaics depicting his life and death. The upper balcony of the monument provides a view of the Cleveland skyline and Lake Erie. Other memorials to famous men at Lake View include a white 65-foot (19.8-meter) obelisk marking John D. Rockefeller's grave, and a monument to lawman Eliot Ness, whose ashes were scattered in Wade Pond. The interior of the cemetery's Wade Chapel was designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany and his studio. Lake View opened in 1869, modeled after the so-called garden cemeteries of England and France. Autumn is a nice time to stroll the grounds and enjoy fall foliage. On Nov. 1, Lake View offers All Saints Day tours at 3 p.m. about some of the cemetery's famous residents. Located at 12316 Euclid Ave.; http://www.lakeviewcemetery.com.

NEW ORLEANS: If you're visiting St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 in New Orleans, you may want to bring an offering for the famous voodoo queen Marie Laveau. Visitors often leave cigarettes, Mardi Gras beads, flowers, candles and even money on her white Greek Revival tomb. St. Louis Cemetery is one of New Orleans' unique "Cities of the Dead," which boast remarkable architecture, history and traditions, including above-ground tombs to ensure that the graves are not be disturbed by floods. Other notable graveyards here include the spectacular Lake Lawn Cemetery and in the Garden District, Lafayette Cemetery. The Web site http://www.nolacemeteries.com has links and information on three dozen cemeteries around the city, and tour information is available at http://www.tourneworleans.com and http://www.saveourcemeteries.org.

LOS ANGELES: Star power is the ticket to immortality here. At Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery (1218 Glendon Ave.), you can pay your respects to Marilyn Monroe, Burt Lancaster, Natalie Wood, Jack Lemmon, Dean Martin, Billy Wilder, Frank Zappa, Rodney Dangerfield and Truman Capote. Those spending eternity at the Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills cemetery (6300 Forest Lawn Drive) include Bette Davis, Lucille Ball, Buster Keaton, Liberace, Stan Laurel, Gene Autry and David Carradine.

Of course the most recent celebrity burial to grab headlines took place just outside L.A., when Michael Jackson was buried in the Great Mausoleum at the Forest Lawn cemetery in Glendale (1712 S. Glendale Ave.). You can enter the mausoleum, but you can't see Jackson's tomb. Instead, you watch a 10-minute show about the mausoleum's stained glass replica of Leonardo Da Vinci's "Last Supper." The show runs daily, every half-hour, 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m., and visitors also get 10 minutes to look at other monuments, crypts and niches in the mausoleum, including reproductions of Michelangelo works. But you can't stray from the two hallways leading to the stained glass, and when your time is up, you're escorted out. You can wander the grounds, but Forest Lawn doesn't disclose gravesite locations, so do your homework first on Web sites like http://www.seeing-stars.com/Buried.

Another L.A. graveyard, Hollywood Forever (6000 Santa Monica Blvd. next to Paramount Studios), is more tourist-friendly: They sell maps to the stars' graves and sometimes even show movies. Hollywood Forever's denizens include Rudolph Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks, Cecil B. DeMille and Johnny Ramone.

PARIS: Phantoms of famed souls, some doomed to early death, fill Pere Lachaise cemetery, in a quiet, shady neighborhood on the eastern edge of Paris: Frederic Chopin, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein and Edith Piaf -- and of course Jim Morrison. Mystery still shrouds the death of the lead singer of The Doors, who was just 27 when he died in Paris in 1971. Some speculate he overdosed in a nightclub, others say he was found dead in his apartment bathtub. Although teenage girls no longer sing and dance while downing bottles of wine by his gravesite, it still attracts numerous tourists. They have to visit by day, though; overnight surveillance officers have replaced unruly nighttime visitors. Tourists Katie Baur, 34, a teacher from Tacoma, Washington, and her brother Mike Baur, 47, a longshoreman from Vancouver, Washington, appreciated the sense of mystique among the cemetery's winding, tree-lined paths and elaborate gravestones, many blackened with age. "It's far different from any type of cemetery we have in the States, with the Gothic look. It's creepy. It's mysterious," Katie Baur said. Pere Lachaise is in Paris' 20th arrondissement, near the Philippe-Auguste Metro stop (line 2), with other entrances accessible from stops Pere Lachaise (lines 2 and 3) and Gambetta (line 3).

------

Associated Press Writers Sue Manning in Los Angeles, Mary Foster in New Orleans and Rachel Kurowski in Paris contributed to this story.


----------



## Rabih (Feb 2, 2008)

seriously!


----------



## Imperfect Ending (Apr 7, 2003)

Once my friend and I went into a mausoleum just exploring when we heard something that sounded like footsteps, we thought it was someone but when we went up and down the halls we didn't see anyone so we decided that we should leave since the "footsteps" were very consistent and it almost sounded like "they" were walking around. 

We got out and we could still hear the footsteps walking around so we looked around.. I looked up and realized that it was the flag flapping in the wind.


----------



## Long_mane (Dec 12, 2009)

Kintoy said:


> the best one is the sunken cemetery in Camiguin Island, in the Philippines.
> 
> The cemetery was part of the town that sunk after a volcanic eruption in 19th century.
> 
> You can see the tombs below the water at about 10-15ft deep, and you can snorkel over them. Quite creepy and interesting experience.


The *SUNKEN CEMETERY IN CAMIGUIN, PHILIPPINES.*


----------



## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

*Happy hunting among headstones *
The Standard
Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Have you ever wondered how Happy Valley got its name? Well, the area was chosen as the location for Hong Kong's first main colonial cemetery - the hillside graveyard at the northern end of the Aberdeen Tunnel.
I wonder what would have happened to property prices in the area if it was called Death Valley? 

The earliest grave in the Hong Kong Cemetery is from May 1841, and was dug just four months after the British occupied the island. Subsequent graves give a fascinating picture of the development of Hong Kong.

There are military men, colonial wives and children - a reminder of the poor living conditions in the early days - as well as missionaries and wealthy businessmen (Westerners, but also quite a few Christian Chinese) and other Asians. 

By the early 20th century, traders, academics, bankers, doctors and even politicians and revolutionaries had joined them. 

The cemetery contains a cross-section of the better-off residents of Hong Kong at the time it was first growing from a settlement into a thriving port. 

It is a fascinating slice of history.

Whether you visit the cemetery or not, I strongly recommend you buy a small bilingual, illustrated book titled Prominent Figures in the Hong Kong Cemetery at Happy Valley by Dr Joseph SP Ting (published by the Hong Kong Institute of Contemporary Culture). 

Ting lists dozens of people buried there, complete with pictures of graves, and provides excellent descriptions of their roles in the territory's early days. 

Bernard Charnwut Chan, chairman of the Antiquities Advisory Board, sees culture from all perspectives.


----------



## Philly Bud (Jun 8, 2009)

Wandering around cemeteries can be so interesting ...


----------



## Imperfect Ending (Apr 7, 2003)

Philly Bud said:


>


Died two days before I was born


----------



## vux (Jan 31, 2010)

*A brief tour of Házsongárd Cemetery in Cluj-Napoca, Romania*

Many of Transylvania's notable figures are buried in the Central Cemetery in Cluj-Napoca, also known as Házsongárd/Hajongard Cemetery. The name probably comes from the German for "Rabbit Garden" (Hasengarten), though this is somewhat disputed.


----------



## DiggerD21 (Apr 22, 2004)

> Ohlsdorf Cemetery in the quarter Ohlsdorf of the city of Hamburg, Germany, is the biggest non-military cemetery in the world and the second-largest cemetery in the world after Calverton National Cemetery in eastern Long Island.
> 
> The cemetery has an area of 391 hectares (966 acres) with 12 chapels, over 1.4 million burials in more than 256,000 burial sites and streets with a length of 17 km (11 mi). Public transport is provided with 25 bus stops of two bus lines of the Hamburger Verkehrsverbund.


Wikipedia

The cemetery also has:
- war graves for both german and british (commonwealth) soldiers from both world wars
- three museums
- several memorials for the victims of Nazi persecution
- a monument for the victims of the Hamburg Firestorm (Operation Gomorrha)
- a memorial grove for the Hamburg resistance fighters (against the nazi regime)

website of the cemetery


----------

