Page 106 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Argentina

104  BUENOS AIRES AREA B Y AREA

3 Cementerio de la Recoleta

One of the world’s great necropolises, Cementerio de la
Recoleta occupies an area of 14 acres (5.5 ha), easily the size
of an entire city block. Argentina’s first president, Bernardino
Rivadavia, commissioned French architect Próspero Catelin to
design the cemetery, which opened in 1822. It boasts wide
leafy avenues, narrow, marble-walled streets, smart, polished
façades, and small, dark alleys. There are more than 6,400
tombs and mauso leums in the cemetery, more than 70 of
which are recognized as National Historic Monuments. The
archi tecture is eclectic, ranging from bombastic Greco-Roman
mini-palaces to wedding-cake-style experiments in One of the central tree-lined avenues of
Romanticism to earthy-looking piles of stones. the cemetery
Narrow Lanes Tomb of Sáenz
These are laid out in a Peña, a former
grid fashion, replicating president.
the city beyond, and
turning the quiet
necropolis into a marble
labyrinth – cold,
impenetrable, and
slightly eerie.

José Hernández’s Tomb
Author of the national
poetry epic Martín Fierro,
Hernández is one of
several writers to have
a tomb among the rich
and powerful. He is laid E Z
to rest in an elegant P
white mausoleum. O
L

E
T
N
E
C
I
V

Tomb of
Bartolomé
Mitre, a former
president and
the founder of
La Nación.

J U N I N
. Eva Perón’s Tomb
A simple black stone affair, the tomb attracts
a large number of pilgrims and tourists, all of Key
whom pause to read a plaque with an extract Suggested route
from her famous “I will be millions” speech.
For hotels and restaurants in this area see p279 and pp288–90

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