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Cementerio de la Recoleta Review
Read our Buenos Aires sights reviews. Or post your own.
Cementerio de la Recoleta 
- Address: Junín 1760, La Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires
- Phone: 11/4803-1594
- Category: Historic Districts/Sites, Cemeteries
- Location: Recoleta
Fodor's Review:
The ominous gates, Doric-columned portico, and labyrinthine paths of the oldest cemetery in Buenos Aires (1822) may leave you with a sense of foreboding. The final resting place for the nation's most illustrious figures is a virtual city of the dead covering 13 1/2 acres that are rumored to be the most expensive real estate in town. The cemetery has more than 6,400 elaborate vaulted tombs and majestic mausoleums, 70 of which have been declared historic monuments. The mausoleums resemble chapels, Greek temples, pyramids, and miniature mansions. The administrative offices at the entrance provide a free map, and caretakers throughout the grounds can help you locate the more intriguing tombs.
Highlights: The embalmed remains of Eva Perón, who made it here after 17 years of posthumous wandering; the brutal caudillo (dictator) Facundo Quiroga, buried standing -- a sign of valor -- at his request; and prominent landowner Dorrego Ortíz Basualdo, in the most monumental sepulcher, complete with chandelier.
Spooky Stories: One of the cemetery's inhabitants, Rufina Cambaceres, is known as the girl who died twice. She was thought dead after suffering a cataleptic attack and was entombed on her 19th birthday in 1902. Rufina awoke inside her casket and managed to claw the top open but died of a heart attack before she could be rescued. When Alfredo Gath -- one of the founders of the now-defunct store Gath & Chaves -- heard of Rufina's story he was appalled and commissioned a special mechanical coffin with an opening device and alarm bell. Gath successfully tested the coffin in situ 12 times, but on the 13th the mechanism failed and he died inside.
- Cost: Free
- Open: Daily 8-5:30
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