A land like Asturias, often misty, full of forests and melancholic places, must necessarily be linked to the mysterious, but also to the fantastic and gothic tone that emanates from its tombs. The Principality has many gloomy cemeteries that give you goosebumps, others that amaze for their excellent medieval preservation or their elegant nineteenth-century invoice, some with such an extraordinary location where it's nice to die. In this post there is a list of the most unique:
1 Niembro Cemetery
2 Luarca Cemetery
3 Carriona Cemetery
4 San Salvador Cemetery
5 Ceares Cemetery
6 Indian cemetery of Santa María de Colombres
7 Bandujo Cemetery
8 San Martín Cemetery
9 Bulnes Cemetery
Niembro Cemetery
This llanisco cemetery, next to the church of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores, has been scene of several feature films. Both the church and the cemetery date from the late eighteenth century and rise on a peninsula known as the cove of Vau, between the towns of Niembru and Barro (Llanes). The enclave of great beauty in which it is located, almost floating in the estuary that at high tide near the cemetery walls, gives it a bucolic atmosphere. The crosses of the pantheons are projected on the waters creating a very special aura.
Luarca Cemetery
It is one of the best postcards of the Cantabrian Sea. On the cliff, overlooking the sea and the port of Luarca, stands one of the most emblematic cemeteries in Spain. The feeling of tranquility that it provokes and the beauty of the coastline overcome the fear of death inseparable from its modernist tombs and pantheons. It is located on the promontory of La Atalaya, a mix between a romantic walk and a coastal viewpoint where the horizon overwhelms. A more than special place to visit loved ones, always accompanied by the extreme whiteness of walls and tombs.
··· Who is buried in the Luarca cemetery?
Severo Ochoa and his wife Carmen rest here. The Spanish biochemist, born in Luarca, was 1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. He shared the award with the biochemist Arthur Kornberg, for his discoveries about the mechanism of the biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid (RNA) and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).
So does Manuel Gil Parrondo, the best artistic director in this country –With two Oscars to his credit. An illustrious Luarqués who worked on such legendary titles as Doctor Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, El Cid or Espartaco. A man of cinema who left the most sublime scenery for the end.
La Carriona Cemetery
This late XNUMXth century cemetery (according to experts the third most important in the country for its ornamental wealth) is an open-air museum within the city of Avilés. It stands out for the multitude of symbolic sculptures in the pantheons, for its Neo-Romanesque chapel and hundreds of Baroque representations. The best funerary sculpture in Spain is here: the angel in the crypt of the Marquise de San Juan de Nieva. An imposing winged angel, the work of Cipriano Folgueras, holding a trumpet to announce the end of time while pointing to the sky with the other hand.
La Carriona is included in the European Route of Cemeteries, has its own interpretation center and frequently organize guided tours along two alternative routes: the «Art Space», focused on the elements of most aesthetic interest, and «Place of memory», a journey through the tombs of illustrious figures, among which the Asturian writer Armando Palacio Valdés stands out. It is on the main street are the most impressive pantheons and hypogeums (up to three stories high), opulent mausoleums such as those of the Marqués de Teverga, María Suárez and his family, the García Morán family, Bonifacio Heres or the Counts of Peñalver.
Carriona Cemetery
With all due respect to those who rest there, and bridging the gap with pain and loss...
San Salvador Cemetery
With Sqm 60.000 surface, this cemetery located on a high on the outskirts of Oviedo, contains the best examples of nineteenth-century funerary architecture in Spain, corresponding mostly to the bourgeoisie and aristocracy of the capital of the Principality. The most outstanding monuments made by the marble masters are dated in the last quarter of the XNUMXth century and the beginning of the XNUMXth, coinciding with the economic expansion that allowed their realization. Also noteworthy are the two porticoes at the entrance to the cemetery and the Oviedo Common Grave, associated with the cemetery, where Republicans killed during the Civil War rest. The tomb of the writer Leopoldo Alas «Clarín» (25-04-1852 - 13-06-1901) We will also find her in San Salvador.
Ceares Cemetery
This was the necropolis par excellence in Gijón during the 1876th century (although its origin dates back to XNUMX) and today it exceeds 30.000 graves. Its design was made by Cándido González with a pioneering design in terms of its planimetry. Several pantheons, niches and sculptures, as well as the Civil Cemetery (very well preserved), are included in the Historical-Artistic Heritage of the Principality of Asturias. The Chapel, built in 1894 with a design by Mariano Medarde, also stands out, with a storage room and autopsy in its side annexes.
Many famous people rest in Ceares: the painters Evaristo Valle, Nicanor Piñole and Orlando Pelayo, the architect Manuel del Busto or the politician José Cáveda, General Alvaro Suárez Valdés, the poet Eulalia de Llanos or the essayist Ernesto Winter.
Indian cemetery of Santa María de Colombres
A good number of Asturians who emigrated to America in the XNUMXth and early XNUMXth centuries managed to make their fortune, and when they returned to their homeland they built large houses and palaces. The Indians of Colombres changed the appearance of their town with these buildings, but they also left their mark on a small cemetery of striking pantheons. The first one we run into when entering is perhaps the one that attracts the most attention. It resembles a Roman temple, with its podium, columns, and pediment. It houses a chapel and an underground crypt. Very close, the pantheon of Don Manuel Ibáñez Posada, count of Ribadedeva, with its neo-Gothic style, and its abandonment, has a totally spooky look.
Bandujo Cemetery
Located at 700 meters of altitude, the town of Bandujo (Banduxu), in Proaza, preserves its medieval origin almost intact. Next to the church is a small cemetery that preserves an ancestral custom: all burials must be on land following a strict order of death. The graves belong to all the neighbors, there is no private property. There are 27 graves and when someone dies they are buried where the oldest deceased is, and so on it rotates. Also on the date of All Saints, families go to the cemetery with the flowers they have planted in their gardens, especially chrysanthemums, and with black and dry earth that they sift over the graves. They draw geometric shapes that they then fill with the flowers of different colors as beads.
San Martín Cemetery
Next to the parish church of San Martín, in rooms, there is a magnificent specimen of yew, with millenary age and more than 15 meters high. A tree classified as a Natural Monument that grows inside the cemetery grounds and was possibly planted there in the XNUMXth or XNUMXth century. The extraordinary longevity of this species (already venerated by pre-Christian communities), symbolizes the immortality and transcendence of death. In the area where the yew tree now stands there was an old pre-Romanesque monastery, founded in the XNUMXth or XNUMXth century, at the time of the construction of the church of San Martín, declared a Historic-Artistic Monument.
Bulnes Cemetery
Possibly one of the most modest cemeteries that can be visited, with graves marked with crosses that are nothing more than two sticks tied with wire, and the name of the deceased painted by hand. It keeps an essence so genuine and humble that it is the perfect counterpoint to any ostentatious manifestation related to death.
Bulnes is a lost village in the Cabrales mountains that until 2001, before the funicular was inaugurated, could only be reached on foot. Formerly the cemetery was covered to be able to bury in winter in the middle of the snowfalls. In this austere graveyard "El Cuco" rests, first dead on the walls of Picu Urriellu or Naranjo de Bulnes on September 2, 1928. "I had a very bad night because of the cold," he wrote in a note before the fatal outcome, "but looking at the stars," he added with the hope of reaching eternity.
