Anna planned our journey into Recoleta the night before, remembering the market in this area, while relaxing with a glass of Uruguayan white wine. Her hard work paid off. We spent our first couple of hours in Recoleta wandering through the stalls of hand crafted art and bought all kinds of wonderful things: paintings, handbags, woven shawl, barrettes, two lovely ceramic plates and a Che magnet. The paintings we bought are done by a sweet artist named Ana. She had her fans/friends unroll her canvases for a gallery display of her work on the sidewalk in the sun of Buenos Aires. We made our selections and moved on. For lunch, a required break before exploring the cemetery, we ate “seis” empanadas with a very cold Stella. Yummmm.
We entered the cemetery formerly the gardens of Franciscan Monks known as the “Recoletos”. The cemetery itself was created in 1822 as the first public cemetery in Buenos Aires. It has 4,800 vaults over 13 acres and of course this is where Evita is now buried under the vault of the “Familia Duarte” her maiden name.
We were in awe of the spectacular displays of each of the mausoleums and quickly discovered that the bigger the display (and some are enormous!), the more important each of these people or their families supposed them to be. There are many famous dictators, presidents and military generals buried here as well as other key players in Argentine history.
The cemetery itself seems like a small city with paths with its gothic and roman architecture. It was beautiful and serene and a fabulous place for Christie to take some gorgeous pictures.
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