Several Galician cemeteries are recognized by the ASCE (Association of Significant Cemeteries in Europe): English Cemetery of Camariñas, Santa Mariña Dozo in Cambados, San Francisco in Ourense, San Amaro in A Coruña and San Froilán in Lugo. These last two, are also included in the Route of European Cemeteries.

Let’s stop to think: Do we know the cemeteries of our city? And the outsiders? Where will Rosalía be buried? And Pondal? How about we take a tour of the most beautiful cemeteries in Galicia?

English Cemetery, Camariñas. Between the point of O Boi and the point Cagada there had already been shipwrecks, but that of the English battleship Serpent, on November 10, 1890, was the most serious, with 172 dead. Only three crew members were saved. With the help of the entire town, a cemetery was built to bury the 142 recovered bodies, in front of what has since been called “baixo do Serpent”. The remains of the captain and the officers rest in the inner enclosure and, outside, those of the sailors. It is a very simple construction, dominated by the landscape, with Mount Branco in the background and the large reserve of Corema album flowers.

Cambados Cemetery. “The most melancholic cemetery in the world”, according to Cunqueiro, is located next to the ruins of the church of Santa Mariña Dozo. This is a temple of maritime Gothic style from the 12th century, with remains of the previous Romanesque chapel, and was abandoned in the 19th century. Practically we only see the skeleton of the church. Here is buried Josefina Blanco, Valle-Inclán’s wife, next to her son.

Adina Cemetery, Iria Flavia. It is next to the church of Santa María de Iria Flavia. “O simiterio de Adina/ n´hai doubt that it is enchanting,/ cos seus olivos escuros/ de vella remembrance”: this is how Rosalía de Castro saw it, who was buried here until 1891, when she was taken to the Pantheon of the Illustrious in Santiago. There are no niches here, all the tombstones are attached to the ground. And they are very old, there are even anthropomorphic sarcophagi from between the 6th and 10th centuries. There are also two stone crosses and several ancient olive trees. Camilo José Cela sleeps forever under one of them.

Santa Maria A Nova, Noia. The cemetery is next to the church, which is in the maritime Gothic style, with a single nave with a wooden roof. It houses the Museo de las Laudas, where we find guild tombstones and medieval sarcophagi. In the cemetery, the Gothic transept and another with a canopy, “O Cristo do Humilladoiro”, from the 16th century, stand out. In addition, it has more than five hundred graves and tombstones from between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Mondoñedo Old Cemetery. The structure of this cemetery is undisguisedly classist: in the upper area, the pantheons of the upper class; in the middle one, the middle-class tombs and, in the one closest to the ground, the burials of humble people. Dust we are… We can see the tombstones of Cunqueiro, Leiras Pulpeiro and Pascual Veiga, among others. The civil cemetery area is used as a park.

Cemetery of San Francisco, Ourense. It stands on the slopes of Montealegre, next to the old convent of San Francisco. It has high-quality sculptural groups, such as those of Faílde. Here lie Blanco Amor, Otero Pedrayo, Risco, Cuevillas, Parada Justel… There is also the poet José Ángel Valente, who was honorary president of the Association of Friends of the Cemetery, and one of the promoters of its conservation. Here also rests Asunción González Vázquez, considered the first recorded victim of sexist violence in Ourense. His tombstone reads: “Poor Asunción!”

San Froilán Cemetery, Lugo. It is 500 m from the Camino Primitivo de Santiago. It is the work of the rationalist architect Eloy Maquieira, and stands out for its clean spatial arrangement. Many of the funerary constructions were moved from the old municipal cemetery. It is a very active cemetery: it organizes photography competitions, training days, guided tours, dramatized readings, concerts…

San Amaro Cemetery, A Coruña. Here eternal rest  overlooks the sea. There is a religious area, another civil and the British, closed to the public. In addition, it has some collective monument, such as the one dedicated to the Martyrs of Liberty, to the victims of the Montrove plane crash in 1973 or the Broken Column in memory of the general strike of 1901. Among the tombstones we find the names of Isidoro Brocos, Eduardo Pondal, Murguia…

Pereiro Cemetery, Vigo. It was designed by Jenaro Pérez de la Fuente, who was even in charge of the pantheon where his remains rest, right here, of course. Walking among the tombs is walking through the history of the city, it looks like a street map from Vigo: Policarpo Sanz, Sanjurjo Badía, Cachamuíña, García Barbón… Although the star is Concepción Arenal. There is also a Garden of Historical Memory, in the civil cemetery. Another attraction is the Dodge Carreiro, an elegant hearse from c. 1930.

Bonaval Park, Santiago. The Bonaval cemetery, next to the convent of Santo Domingo de Bonaval, was inaugurated in 1847 and continually expanded until it was no longer used for funerary purposes in 1960. It has been converted into a magnificent park, rehabilitated by Siza, which preserves empty funerary structures . In the church of the convent we can visit the Pantheon of the Illustrious Gallegos, where Rosalía de Castro, Alfredo Brañas, Cuevillas, Asorey, Fontán and, aside, Castelao are.

Cemetery of San Froilán

Lugo

Although built less than 90 years ago, the municipal cemetery of Lugo is a place of great artistic and cultural interest. Inside it houses some of the most outstanding funeral constructions from the previous cemetery, which were moved to this new location. Nineteenth-century pantheons, such as that of Canon García Abad, the sculptures that adorn some tombs and monuments such as the one dedicated to the soldiers of the Cuban War populate a place that is the subject of guided tours and serves as a stage for poetic and musical activities. It is also in the vicinity of the route of the Camino de Santiago that passes through Lugo: the Primitive Way.

San Francisco Cemetery

Ourense

Linked to the old convent of San Francisco, this cemetery located in the city of Ourense stands out for the monumentality of many of its tombs and pantheons as well as for some of the personalities that were buried there, which has led to it being declared a Site of Cultural Interest. Ramón Otero Pedrayo, Eduardo Blanco Amor, Vicente Risco, Lamas Carvajal and José Ángel Valente, poet and president of the Association of Friends of the San Francisco Cemetery, are some of the illustrious representatives of the world of culture buried there. This cemetery has also been a source of inspiration for many local creators, including the rock group Los Suaves, which has a square named after them not far from there and which dedicated one of its records to them.

Santa Mariña de Dozo Cemetery

Cambados

The monumentality of the streets of Cambados finds in the cemetery of Santa Mariña de Dozo its most overwhelming expression. The ruins of the church of the same name with the arches that supported the disappeared vault defying the passage of time and gravity preside over a space that impresses everyone who contemplates it. The great writer Álvaro Cunqueiro defined it as the most melancholic cemetery in the world. Built on top of an old chapel that was in turn built on the remains of a castro, the church was abandoned in the 19th century, but the place continued to be used as a cemetery.

Santa María A Nova Cemetery

Noia 

Two elements make the cemetery of the church of Santa Maria A Nova one of the most outstanding not only in Galicia, but in all of Spain: the space outside the walls, known as A Quintana dos Mortos and built on soil brought from Palestine, and the Museum of Guilds Headstones which shows inside the temple the largest collection of tombstones in the world that contain the job of the deceased.

Cemetery of San Amaro

A Coruña

Built a little over 200 years ago, the San Amaro cemetery overlooks the sea from the center of the city and keeps within its walls the remains of important historical personalities such as writers Eduardo Pondal, Manuel Murguía, Curros Enríquez and Wenceslao Fernández Flórez. The city council organizes guided tours and has drawn up four different thematic itineraries for visitors to tour the place and discover its secrets.

Cemetery of the English

Camariñas

The trace of one of the most tragic shipwrecks ever to have taken place on the Costa da Morte is still present in Camariñas. The remains of the victims of the Serpent, an English battleship that sank off the coast of the municipality after hitting the rocks in the area known as Punta do Boi, rest in the Cemetery of the English. Only three of its 175 crew members managed to save their lives in this dramatic event that led to the construction of the new Cape Vilan lighthouse.

Bonaval Cemetery

Santiago de Compostela

Little remains of the old cemetery of the convent of Santo Domingo de Bonaval, but that does not detract from the interest. The space formerly occupied by the tombs and the adjacent land has been converted into a beautiful park in which the tranquility of its previous use reigns and which also offers spectacular views of part of the city. The presence of the Museo do Pobo Galego (Museum of the Galician People) and the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea (Galician Centre of Contemporary Art) in the surrounding area has made the site a must see. 

Goiriz Gothic Cemetery

Vilalba

There are several cemeteries in the municipalities of A Terra Chá (Lugo) that stand out for their Gothic style. High pinnacles carved in stone and crowned by crosses rise from the top of the niches drawing a very characteristic silhouette and creating games of shadows when the sun passes through them. The one in the parish of Goiriz, in Vilalba, is one of the best known since it is also located next to another Jacobean route: the Northern Way.

Cemetery of Colors

Dumbría

The wide and striking chromatic palette used to decorate this municipal cemetery in Dumbría has meant that since its construction, just under 10 years ago, it has become another attraction of this municipality located in the heart of the Costa da Morte. Resin sheets of vivid and diverse colors cover the niches so that the visitor experiences a sensation of comfort.