BUENOS AIRES CEMETERIES: RECOLETA (By Hostel Buenos Aires)

Buenos Aires has many cemeteries, although the most famous and tourist ones are those from La Recoleta and La Chacarita. Aristocratic, the first one and popular the other, are places of a unique beauty that house a large part of our urban history. Hostel Colonial introduces you to the two best known cemeteries of Buenos Aires. Today, we tell you about the more fashionable and famous one, La Recoleta, house of ex presidents and elite artists.

This cemetery locates right next to the Nuestra Señora del Pilar Church, which belonged to the Recoletos Order. When this order was dissolved in 1822, the garden of the convent was turned into the first public cemetery of our city. Its two first residents were working class people: a black boy named Juan Benito and the young María Dolores Maciel.


During the decade of 1870, as a consequence of the yellow fever epidemic that devastated the city, many high class Porteños left their traditional neighborhoods of San Telmo and Montserrat and moved to the north of the city, to Recoleta. As this neighborhood turned into a high class area, the cemetery became the last rest of the powerful and privileged families of Buenos Aires.

The place counts of lots of marble mausoleums, decorated with statues, in a wide variety of architectonic styles. It’s organized in blocks, with broad wooded avenues that end in lateral alleys when mausoleums and tombs align. Among the famous characters that rest here are: María de los Remedios de Escalada (1797-1823), wife of the libertador of South America General Don José de San Martín, Vicente López y Planes (1785-1856), author of our National Hymn, Dalmacio Vélez Sársfield (1800-1875), author of our Civil Code, Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793-1877), 30 years Governor of Buenos Aires, José Hernández (1834-1886), the most famous Argentine writer and the Presidents of Argentina Bartolomé Mitre (1821-1906), Nicolás Avellaneda (1837-1885), Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1811-1888), Carlos Pellegrini (1846-1906), Manuel Quintana (1835–1906), Hipólito Yrigoyen (1852-1933) and Arturo Umberto Illia (1900-1983), along with an infinity of poets and artists and the mythical Eva Perón (Evita).