The citizens of Buenos Aires, commonly known as porteños, are known for their sense of style and for over 130 years the city's most fashionable address for the well-heeled deceased has been Recoleta Cemetery. The cemetery is home to former presidents and wealthy industrialists, not to mention the most famous dead person in Argentina: Evita Peron.
Although many visitors travel to Recoleta Cemetery in search of Evita's grave, the real reason to visit the cemetery is to walk through the long rows of mausoleums that span more than 10 acres of prime real estate. It's clear that porteños mean business when it comes to choosing a final resting place. Each mausoleum is distinctive and the variety of designs and details makes the cemetery feel less like a grave yard and more like a neighborhood filled with rows of ornate houses.
Many of the families that came to prominence during Argentina's golden age -- from the 1880's until the Great Depression -- are represented at Recoleta. Argentina's economy has been a roller coaster for much of the last 75 years, and many of the families represented at Recoleta have seen better days. So have their tombs. A surprisingly large number of tombs have been reclaimed by time and the elements. Windows are broken, doors swing open in the wind, and the cemetery's considerable black cat population wanders in and out of the tombs with great propriety.
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