Recoleta

The most Parisian corner of Buenos Aires, with a city of the dead in the middle of it.

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🏛️ Recoleta Essentials

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Best Time: Morning

Low sun down the lanes, fewer groups

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Allow 2 Hours

One for the cemetery, one for the streets

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Take a Walking Tour

The tomb stories are the whole point

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Subte: Line H or on foot

An easy walk from Retiro and the centre

🧭 Why Visit

The free walking tour of Recoleta was one of the best things we did in the city, and the cemetery is the reason. It is not a graveyard in any sense you are used to. It is a walled town of streets and blocks, six thousand vaults built like houses, and you wander it the way you would wander any old quarter. The neighbourhood around it is the city at its most European and rewards an afternoon on foot.

🏛️ A Little History

The cemetery opened in 1822 on the garden of the Recoletos convent, laid out by the French engineer Prospero Catelin, and the families who made their money in beef and wheat spent it here competing with one another in marble. Ninety four of the vaults are declared national historic monuments. The Basilica del Pilar beside the gates is older than all of it, finished in 1732.

💡 Did You Know?

Eva Peron is buried in her family's vault under the name Duarte, and it is deliberately modest: a black granite front on an ordinary lane, with no statue and no fuss. It took nearly twenty years and a journey across Europe for her body to end up there. The flowers are always fresh.

Above the cemetery wall

The Neighbourhood

Recoleta is the city at its most Parisian, and the cemetery sits in the middle of it behind a wall you can walk past without noticing.

The white bell tower and facade of the Basilica del Pilar in Recoleta, Buenos Aires.
Basilica del PilarThe white colonial church beside the cemetery gates has stood here since 1732, long before the neighbourhood grew up around it.
The monumental colonnade of the Buenos Aires law faculty under a dramatic cloudscape.
The Law School ColonnadeA few blocks north the University of Buenos Aires law faculty presents a colonnade the size of a temple front, and a sky to match.
The words REQUIESCANT IN PACE in raised letters on the Recoleta Cemetery wall.
Requiescant in PaceThe boundary wall carries the words in raised letters, which is the only warning the street gets about what is behind it.
Expectamus Dominum

Through the Gate

Past the portico the ground opens into what is unmistakably a town, laid out in streets, with a general standing at the first corner.

The neoclassical Doric entrance portico of Recoleta Cemetery with its Latin inscription.
The PorticoDoric columns and a single line of Latin over the gate: Expectamus Dominum, we await the Lord.
The bronze figure of General Pablo Riccheri before his stone monument in Recoleta Cemetery.
Teniente General Pablo RiccheriThe first monument on the main avenue. Riccheri was Minister of War from 1900 to 1904 and wrote the 1901 law that gave Argentina compulsory military service, which stood until 1995. The present vault dates from 1952, with sculpture by Luis Perlotti.
A narrow corridor of mausoleums in Recoleta Cemetery receding to a vanishing point.
A Street of VaultsOff the main avenue the lanes narrow until two people cannot pass, and the perspective runs away to a point.
Who is buried here

The Names

A president who buried the dictatorship, the general who followed the coup that removed Peron, the man who built the state oil company, and the caretaker who swept these lanes for thirty years. They are all within a few minutes of each other.

The Familia Duarte tomb in Recoleta Cemetery, where Eva Peron is buried, with flowers.
Familia DuarteEva Peron lies in her family's vault, marked only by the name Duarte and by the flowers that never stop arriving.
The tomb of President Raul Alfonsin: marble sarcophagus, portrait bust and a stained glass skylight.
Raul AlfonsinThe president who took office in 1983 as the dictatorship ended, created the commission on the disappeared, and put the junta commanders on trial in 1985. He died in 2009. The plaque on the wall is the preamble of the Argentine Constitution, which he recited as a campaign refrain.
The plain granite tomb of Pedro Eugenio Aramburu below a marble group of mourning figures.
AramburuPedro Eugenio Aramburu was de facto president from 1955 to 1958, after the coup that removed Peron. He was abducted and shot by the Montoneros in 1970. In October 1974 his casket was taken from this cemetery and held against the return of Eva Peron's remains from Spain; it was recovered hours before hers arrived. The two tombs are a few minutes apart.
The monument to General Enrique Mosconi, a hooded bronze figure on a marble slab with relief panels.
General Enrique MosconiThe lettering reads: homage from the staff of YPF to its first president. Mosconi ran the state oil company from 1922, built the La Plata refinery, and argued for state control of oil against the international majors. The monument was paid for by the company's workers.
The marble statue of David Alleno in working clothes with keys, a watering can and a broom.
The CaretakerDavid Alleno swept these lanes from 1881, and the base reads caretaker of this cemetery. He commissioned this statue of himself in working clothes, with his keys, his watering can and his broom, and had the end date cut into it while he was still alive. Every guide will tell you he then shot himself. He did not.
The sculptor's signature A. Canessa, Genova, Italia carved into the marble of the Alleno tomb.
The Detail That Undoes the StoryThe signature on the stone is Achille Canessa of Genoa, who died in 1905. So the statue was carved at least five years before the 1910 date on the base, and a decade before Alleno actually died, in 1915, of a head injury nobody recorded the cause of.
The art nouveau tomb of Rufina Cambaceres, a marble girl with her hand on the door.
Rufina CambaceresShe died on her nineteenth birthday in 1902, daughter of the novelist Eugenio Cambaceres. Her mother commissioned this art nouveau tomb from Richard Aigner, and the marble girl has her hand on the door. The story that she was buried alive is not in the record; her obituary says she collapsed while dressing for the opera.
Names you will know

The Marble

Block after block of marble, bronze and wrought iron, and no two neighbours agreeing on a style.

A gothic mausoleum with an angel finial and flanking statues against clear sky.
Gothic, With an AngelSomewhere between 4,700 and 4,900 vaults stand here, ninety four of them declared national monuments, and no two neighbours agree on a style.
The neo-Gothic Dorrego Ortiz Basualdo mausoleum with a marble figure at a seven branch candelabrum.
Dorrego Ortiz BasualdoThe grandest vault in the cemetery, neo-Gothic, built for two intermarried landowning families whose city house is now the French embassy. The marble is by Giovanni Battista Villa and the group is the parable of the wise and foolish virgins. Over the arch: O Crux Ave Spes Unica, hail O Cross, our only hope.
A winged marble angel on a plinth against clear sky in Recoleta Cemetery.
The AngelA winged marble figure stands clear of the roofline with nothing behind her but sky.
An art nouveau wrought-iron mausoleum door with whiplash curves.
Art Nouveau in IronSome of the doors are worth the visit on their own. This one is all whiplash curves, cast rather than carved.
A Recoleta mausoleum with bronze memorial plaques beside an iron grille door.
Plaques and GrilleBronze plaques accumulate on a vault the way they do on a family, generation over generation.
The tomb of Luz Maria Garcia Velloso, her name carved above a reclining marble effigy.
La Bella DurmienteLuz Maria Garcia Velloso died at fifteen in 1925, daughter of the playwright Enrique Garcia Velloso. The effigy inside shows her sleeping, which is what the cemetery calls it: the Sleeping Beauty.

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Getting There & Around

  • It is a flat and pleasant walk from Plaza San Martin, twenty minutes through the good streets
  • The Sunday craft market on the park outside the walls is worth timing your visit for

Local Know-How

  • Find the Duarte vault early, then stop looking for famous names and just walk the lanes
  • The cats are residents, not strays, and the neighbourhood looks after them

Frequently Asked Questions

Where exactly is Eva Peron buried?
In the Duarte family vault, marked with the family name rather than hers. It is signposted from the entrance and there is usually a small group in front of it.
Is there an entrance fee?
There is a charge for visitors now, and the arrangements change, so check before you go. The Basilica del Pilar next door is separate.
How long does the cemetery take?
An hour covers it comfortably. Two if you take a guided walk, which we would recommend, because almost every vault has a story and none of them are labelled.
What else is in Recoleta?
The Basilica del Pilar, the Bellas Artes museum, the enormous law faculty a few blocks north, and some of the best belle epoque streets in the city.

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