Print

Cemeteries
Around the World

Back in time there was a monthly photo competition among travel bloggers called Travel Photo Roulette. Each month had a different theme. For the Travel Photo Roulette #111 competition featuring the theme “repeating shapes,” I had to go deep into my images file to find the one I entered (# 1, immediately below). I was so pleased to win!  The “prize” in this contest was that the winner had to choose a theme, oversee the next competition, and host the winning images on their website–which I was excited and enthused to do. 

My winning image foreshadowed a theme I’d been mulling over for a while, so the theme of Travel Photo Roulette #112 became “cemeteries.”  My fellow globetrotting bloggers came up with images 2 through 5. Juergen Klein at Dare 2 Go was the winner (image #2).

Since then I’ve added many more cemetery images from my own growing collection. 

1. This stark scene is of ancient gravesites on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
Submitted by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

2. The Atacama Desert in Chile has been exploited for its minerals since white settlement began. In the early nineteenhundreds there was a boom of Salpeter mining, drawing thousands of poor families into this barren landscape, in the hope of finding work and some wealth. We spotted this enormous old graveyard some distance from the highway. The photo shows less than a quarter of it. Our visit was an eerie sensation. In the dry desert climate timber doesn’t rot, it dries out and shrinks in size. The wind blew through the wooden enclosures and over the simple crosses, making every joint rattle with the breeze. It almost sounded like clattering bones in some horror movie. What shocked me the most was the sheer number of obviously child-sized graves – buried hopes of the ones who came here for a better life.”
Submitted by Juergen Klein, Dare 2 Go

3. This photo was taken at a cemetery located on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, overlooking the city.  Placing rocks on the tombstones is a Jewish tradition of unknown origin carried out by visitors to the grave.
Submitted by Laura Lynch, Savored Journeys

4. This was taken at the Novdevichye Cemetery in Moscow.  Every grave has a life sized statue of the person interred or something that represents his or her life.  This was one of my favourites along with the man who was an Obstetrician and had a baby in his arms
Submitted by Michele Legge, Legging It

5. I took this photo in the extraordinary La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The entire cemetery is filled with family mausoleums and in some places feels like a sculpture garden. Evita Peron is interred there. I found this sculpture of a grieving child very moving.
Submitted by Suzanne Fluhr, Boomeresque

6. This is the pilgrimage church and Sorbian cemetery in Ralbitz-Rosenthal, Upper Lusatia, Germany.  After 20 years have passed, the cross is removed and given to relatives and a new person is buried in the spot with a new cross. 
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

7. The Gold Rush pioneer Pine Grove Cemetery is in a residential area on the outskirts of Nevada City, California. 
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

8. Father Junipero Serra, who established the Carmel Mission in Carmel, California, in1770 and used it as his headquarters for managing the entire chain of missions, is buried here at the foot of the altar.  This image depicts part of the cemetery where more than 3,000 mission Indians are buried. 
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

9. Founded in 1908 by Berkeley residents, the Sunset View Cemetery services Berkeley as well as El Cerrito, and Kensington, which it straddles.  The grounds run uphill, where some spectacular panoramic views are enjoyed of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay, and downtown San Francisco skyline.  
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

10. This is the scenic Kalaupapa cemetery on Molokai in Hawaii, reached via a famous mule ride down the cliffs.
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

11. My Dad’s gravesite among many at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. This is his story.
article also of interest: Washington D.C. War Memorials
Photographed by Hin Man

12. All of the corpses displayed in the Mummy Museum in Guanajuato, Mexico, were formerly interred in the adjacent municipal cemetery. The practice of disinterring the poor ended in 1958, and the museum mummies are treated with respect and displayed here in a clean, temperature-controlled setting.  The cemetery has many vertical graves and is interesting to walk through.
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

13. The cemetery in Copala, Mexico–near Mazatlan–holds many rustically beautiful gravestones such as this.
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

14. Walking through this beautiful cemetery in Salsburg, Austria, was like visiting a public garden. Exquisite gravestones blended with immaculate gardening.
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

15. I’ve not seen the more famous Ring of Kerry, but it is hard for me to imagine it could be more beautiful than Ireland’s Ring of Dingle. Driving the scenic ring took most of a day, and we were rewarded with spending the night in a cozy B&B in scenic Dingle Town.
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

16. The Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California, is a 220-acre classic cemetery designed in 1863 by Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of Golden Gate Park.  In 1865, Jane Waer, in plot 1, was the first person buried here.  Since then, more than 165,000 people have joined her, and there’s room for more.  Anybody who is anyone in the history of the Bay Area is buried here.  “Millionaires’ Row” is where steel magnate Henry J. Kaiser, banker Charles Crocker, and several Ghirardelli chocolatiers rest in small Victorian family crypts and mausoleums with spectacular views of San Francisco and Oakland.  Other notable locals buried here include Al Davis and John Lee Hooker in the Garden of Ages.  Two pyramids and an assortment of stone angels round out the visual delights. 
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

17. St. Oswald’s Church in Grasmere, England, in the Lake District, is surrounded by a picturesque graveyard. Grasmere is the same village that is home to Wordsworth’s Dove Cottage and a charming gingerbread shop.
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

18. Located in the Presidio of San Francico, the 29-acre San Francisco National Cemetery overlooks the Golden Gate Bridge. It was the first national cemetery established on the West Coast and is the final resting place of more than 30,000 service members. This is one of only three burial sites in the city. The other two are at Mission Dolores and the San Francisco Columbarium.
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

19. Horse-drawn caissons were originally designed to carry artillery. But since the 19th century they have been used to remove dead soldiers from battlefields and to carry caskets to gravesites during military funeral. I spotted this one during my mother’s funeral at Miramar National Cemetery in San Diego, California.
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

20. I saw this cemetery in Nassau, Bahamas, on the way back to my Holland America Line cruise ship from the Adrasta Gardens zoo.
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

21, Bubbling Well Pet Memorial Park is a surprising find in the exclusive California Wine Country. It overlooks the lush Napa Valley, and more than 12,000 pets graves are spread over 5 grassy acres grassy in sections that include Gentle Giants for larger breeds, Mighty Midgets for smaller guys, and Kitty Kurve. 
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole

22. The Chong Kai War Cemetery is located in Tha Ma Kham near Kanchanaburi, Thailand.  The land was originally a prisoner-of-war camp and now holds the graves of 1,426 British and 313 Dutch prisoners of war who died during World War II.  It is very near the bridge over the River Kwai. 
Photographed by Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Travels with Carole