One of the things you absolutely have to do when you hop off the train, deboard the plane or exit the rental car in Salzburg, Austria is visit St. Peter’s Cemetery. I know it sounds like supremely macabre activity to do in this city of Mozart but this massive Austrian bone yard is steeped in so much local history and beauty, that to miss it would be a crime against humanity, well maybe not humanity but a crime against a bygone era. St. Peter’s is located at the foot of Hohensalzburg Castle and is visible from most parts of the center city of Salzburg and has some positively incredible views.
The tombstones and peripheral grim memorials at St. Peter’s are as elaborate as they are ostantacious and honestly beautiful. Ornately metal inclosures no only protect the outside world from the remains within but you from the unlikely event a Austrian Zombie apocalypse would ensue (going through a Zombie phase right now). Notable citizens are buried here such as previous mayors of Salzburg, Opera singers, poets and Mozart, not Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but his sister Maria (pays to be family).
This crypt is bigger than some NYC apartments
You could choose to go on ski holidays in Switzerland, boat cruises on the Danube, or shopping trips to Paris, but each city’s cemetery offer a look into a sometimes forgotten past. Paris’ most famous, Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris spans 110 acres. It’s most famous occupants include Oscar Wilde, Balzac, Bizet, and American Gertrude Stein. Staten Islands Mount Richmond Cemetery is a final resting place for women who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911,(history lesson for those who have never heard of this) a major turning point for how American workers were treated in factories at the turn of the century.
Who wouldn't want a little 3D skeleton whittled into their grave stone?
Don’t forget about the catacombs fashioned into the side of the rock wall protecting St. Peter’s. They are estimated to date back over 1,000 years and house 2 chapels and plenty of bones, how eerie!
That's some tomb!
Ornate sculptures along the avenue of the dead
