Recoleta Cemetery
Recoleta
With more than 4,700 ornate stone crypts laid out along a streetlike grid, this graveyard is an architectural masterpiece, and an eerie miniature city for the wealthy dead (and more than a few cats). Only Argentina’s finest are laid to rest here: prominent personalities include various former presidents and much of the Borges clan. But of course Recoleta’s most famous resident is Eva Duarte Perón, beloved first lady and short-lived president of the republic. Visitors festoon Evita’s comparatively simple black marble crypt with flowers and cards, and tourists struggle to get good pictures despite the crowds. Yet Evita’s presence in this most elite and handsome of graveyards is incongruous. As a populist politician and friend to the poor, Eva Perón likely would not have chosen to spend eternity hobnobbing with the rich. But there she is.
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