How cemeteries became the new tourist attraction

Săpânța Village, Săpânța District, Maramureş County, Romania - July 19, 2012: The Merry Cemetery crosses in pale blue color.

They’re old, a little bit creepy, and generally a place only frequented by those visiting deceased loved ones. Until now.

Cemeteries have suddenly had new life injected into them, and per a recent news.com.au article, one cemetery leading the way on this bizarre attraction is Adelaide’s West Terrace Cemetery.

The cemetery is being reinvented as a way of breaking away from the macabre notions surrounding death and cemeteries, with West Terrace now using olive trees to create olive oil produce, and encouraging more visitors of the ‘living’ variety.

“Trying to sell death is very hard, no-one wants to buy it,” Adelaide Cemeteries Authority Chief Executive Robert Pitt told AFP.

“However, if we’re selling olive oil or selling an experience … (it’s) where the real value of coming to a cemetery is. And there’s definitely a sense of place here. There’s a sense of reverence and a sense of history.”

Per news.com.au, this year’s limited edition olive oil bottles sold out rapidly, despite their unusual place of origin. The bottles celebrated the cemetery’s 180th anniversary.

And according to historian Cathy Dunn, this kind of activity shows that cemeteries are expanding beyond their primary role as sites “for the disposal of the dead”.

Other old cemeteries in Australia have drawn visitors for various reasons, such as the stunning views at Waverley Cemetery, which looks out over the ocean.

Another growing tourist hotspot is Sydney’s Rookwood Cemetery, which is the largest in the southern hemisphere, drawing visitors in with things like open days, annual sculpture walks and the odd bike race.

Celebrating its 150th milestone recently, the cemetery had live jazz music playing, demonstrations of grave-digging (creepy), and kid’s face painting, per news.com.au.

Rookwood Chief Executive George Simpson told AFP the industry was using the practice of tracing family lines online to connect with more people, while back in Adelaide, Pitt was considering introducing augmented reality to bring tombstones to life at West Terrace cemetery.

This bizarre tourist play also serves to make people more comfortable with the idea of death and mortality, given Australia’s death rates are set to more than double in the next few decades, as the population ages and more people find themselves picking out their own grave site.

Pitt’s cemeteries authority has organised “Death Over Dinner” events, which involve inviting guests to share a meal and ask expert speakers about the end of life, getting familiar with talking about death.

Naturally, not everyone is a fan, with media reports from earlier this year covering a Melbourne family’s dismay at having their grandmother’s funeral delayed over a historic food tour through the cemetery.

Others welcome the change, like Maree Edwards, who told AFP she’d witnessed the evolution of Rookwood over 40 years, when she buried her father.

“You’ve got to come with a different mentality here and think: ‘Wow, this isn’t like a creepy, dead man’s land. It’s nice, it’s a cheery place.’

To mark this unusual tourist plug, we scoped a few of the prettiest cemeteries in Australia – and the world – to give you some insight into the appeal.

You can find the original article on the Flight Centre blog.

Waverley Cemetery, Sydney, Australia

North Bondi

Cemetiere du Pere Lachaise, Paris, France

Pere-Lachaise cemetery in Paris

Old Jewish Cemetery, Prague

Old jewish cemetery in Prague

Cemetery of Punta Arenas, Chile

Chapel cementary Punta Arenas Chile

Merry Cemetery, Romania

The Merry Cemetery

Mount of Olives, Jerusalem, Israel

Jewish cemetery on Mount of Olives

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