#Microblog Monday 518: Graveyards
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Was it Erin McKeown’s newsletter about writing a will or planning an upcoming trip that triggered this thought, but do you schedule graveyard visits when you’re going somewhere new?
A long time ago, visiting graveyards and photographing graves was one of my top trip destinations. I remember getting to Oslo late in the day, setting down my things, and immediately setting out to find Ibsen’s grave in a nearby cemetery.
Josh was less enthralled with going to graveyards. He wasn’t against it, but he wasn’t taking three modes of transportation to get to a graveyard outside a city just because a favourite writer was buried there. I mean, it makes sense: you’re not seeing a place where they lived. You’re just seeing a stone with their name on it. So graveyards were dropped from the itinerary, and it went from being my number one scheduled activity to a only-if-it-happens-organically activity on trips.
Do other people visit graveyards when they travel?
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3 comments
I did it!
I love visiting cemeteries. We have one here in Rochester that’s basically a park with trails and you can get a tour of the historical and geologic(al?) aspects of it (Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass are buried there). Most of our travel has been to New England, mostly Vermont and Maine, and yep — cemeteries are high on the list. We don’t tour, but we find little ones and walk around and figure out the stories behind the epitaphs. And learn that creeping thyme is all over old cemeteries because it smells good when you step on it and that masked the smell of death way back when. Where else will you learn that sort of thing? 😉
I’ve visited one of the big Paris cemeteries. Not just for Simone de Beauvoir etc but for the gorgeous peaceful nature, the autumn colours, etc. On my recent trip, I visited graveyards in churches where my ancestors attended, and looked for names of relations. And in Dublin, we did a tour of the main cemetery there, which gave us a fabulous summary of Irish history (and was also lovely). I don’t always seek them out – but I’m always glad when I’ve visited.
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