Graveyard Tourism

“Somebody asked me a little while ago whether it was a really a good idea to take people to cemeteries, from a touristic point of view? Well, that all depends on the way we look at things.

Obviously, we’re not trying to be like that cemetery in Paris where Jim Morisson is buried. But if we can somehow de-mystify the idea that cemeteries are sinister places, places of fear and superstition, places to which we only go because a family member or friend has died - and if we look at them instead from an artistic perspective; look at the monuments in them, then definitely they’re worth visiting!

If people started to realise that there are things in cemeteries that could be appreciated in a museum, then they might start to look at these places in a very different way,” explains Luís Guerreiro.

During the tour, Guerreiro talked about various people who had been “important in the progress and development of the area, within politics, culture and the economy. The way they’re buried in Loulé cemetery also shows the importance they had outside” in the world of the living.

In Portugal, the history of cemeteries as we know them today dates back to the 19th century – at the height of the Romantic era. According to Luísa Martins it was “a time of great sentimentality and a lot of revivalism. A time when the concepts of heritage and monument were developing” – and along with them ideas that ended up making their mark on spaces like this.

Proof of this can be seen at the very entrance to the graveyard. Two monumental tombs evoke funereal art in worked stone, a form of grave decoration no longer made today. One of them houses Ângelo José de Castro, who died in 1915. Alongside his tomb, in a structure just as imposing, lies contemporary José Martins Farrajota.

A closer look at the graves shows that these wealthy, but freethinking, men wanted to perpetuate their own personal values, and as well, perhaps involuntarily, perpetuate a bit of the era in which they lived.

There are no religious symbols on their tombs – but engraved in the stone you see various Masonic images like “upside down torches – which symbolize the inversion of life, the fire that extinguishes itself”, explains Martins.

“This was a period of Republicanism, of changing mentalities” – and the First Republic was profoundly “anticlerical”.

But cemeteries also show that those who were humble in life continue to be so in death. “Someone asked me recently why António Aleixo – who was such an important reference for Loulé – doesn’t have a tomb like one of these”, adds Martins. “Well, these graves represent the reality and social condition of the people when they lived. Aleixo’s burial plot is simple and unpretentious because that is the way he was in life”.

Indeed, the man who was perhaps the greatest popular poet in Portugal simply has a modest plaque of homage, conferred by the municipality in 1989. “People ask me: don’t you think it should have been greater? Well, I think that perhaps local people could join forces and create a mausoleum to António Aleixo just like some of the great ones we have here”.

Contrary to Portimão or Faro, Loulé’s cemetery hasn’t been gobbled up by the town’s expansion. It was inaugurated in 1918 when pneumonia was “killing 60 people a day”, says Luís Guerreiro.

Its first site was next to the Igreja da Sé, in the Jardim dos Amuadas. It then moved to where the GNR barracks are today, “the so-called Rossio cemetery”.

At the end of the 19th century people began worrying about health issues and thinking cemeteries should be sited away from residential areas – because of the danger of pollution of underground waters”, adds Martins.

“People in the 1800s were very concerned with public hygiene”. The use of cypress trees in cemeteries was suggested by another well-known national figure of the time, Alexandre Herculano, because they stay green all year and allow for “the constant renovation of air”. They also “have a strong, worthy colour that would fill the souls of romantics…”

And before? “There are other older cemeteries that may or not be known by those who study local history”. In the old days “important ecclesiastical figures, the wealthy and social elite were buried next to alters in chapels and churches.

Common people, as well as those that hadn’t been baptized, criminals, outlaws, were buried in common graves outside religious spaces. There’s a place in Lisbon called “poço dos negros”, which actually was used to bury slaves” and other unholy souls. This particular burial site was opened by D. Manuel I in 1515, and still today the memory lives on in a street name in the capital.

But doesn’t this form of “tourism” evoke a certain morbid curiosity? “No, no! There is something called “necrotourism” which centres on trips to places connected to the supernatural, to spiritualism. Cemeteries aren’t the only places on the itinerary. People visit houses known for being haunted, mansions and old buildings with fantastical stories associated to them.

And then there’s what we call “cemetery tourism”, which is a form of remembrance; heritage tourism – cultural because these places really are open-air museums. They’re accessible to everyone, and, for this reason, this kind of tourism is growing”, considers Luísa Martins.

For the Algarve, this little tour was perhaps a first step that Loulé borough council may well repeat – but in the country’s two largest cities, this kind of thing is already a tried and trusted formula. The Prazeres cemetery in Lisbon regularly hosts guided tours in several different languages.

Statistics from the capital show that in just a decade the number of visitors to the city’s seven graveyards has grown six-fold – reaching approximately 9000 tourists in 2010. Most of these come from northern European countries, like Germany and Holland.

In Oporto, the Prado do Repouso graveyard (established in 1839 on the farm of a bishop) and the flamboyant Agramonte cemetery (established in 1855 as a result of a cholera epidemic) also attract a lot of tourists. In fact they’re both at the top of the list of cemeteries cited by the Association of Important Cemeteries in Europe (ASCE), among a total of 54 spread over 18 countries.

In the final analysis, a cemetery mirrors the dynamics of society. “If at the beginning of the century people were still connected to ideals and religion, recently they’ve begun giving importance to other things in our daily social and economical lives: houses and villas”, concludes Luísa Martins, referring to the more modern graves in Loulé cemetery…