Historic cemeteries offer an alternative to conventional Halloween attractions, combining elaborate sculpture, distinctive architecture and the graves of celebrated figures. Although admission is often free, these burial grounds vary in both accessibility and entry arrangements.
Travel app Saily’s Tombstone Tourism Index assessed cemeteries across 30 European cities using five differently weighted criteria. These covered notable people buried there, visual merit, heritage status, opportunities for a crowd-free visit, and transport connections from the city centre.
Paris’s Père Lachaise contains approximately 70,000 graves across 44 hectares, including that of singer Jim Morrison. Admission is free, and the cemetery is 15 minutes from central Paris. Its Oslo counterpart is just 10 minutes from the city centre and includes the grave of playwright Henrik Ibsen.
Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh, where architect William Playfair is buried, is distinguished by elaborate Victorian monuments. The Category A listed site lies between Queensferry Road and the Water of Leith. In Prague, Olšany Cemetery combines weathered Baroque tombs, ornate Art Nouveau monuments and overgrown pathways; writer Franz Kafka is among those buried there.
London’s Highgate Cemetery, by contrast, charges admission unless visitors own a grave or hold a grave owner’s pass. The Grade I listed cemetery contains around 950 notable burials, including Karl Marx’s. Its Victorian Gothic setting features overgrown mausoleums, ivy-covered angels and an Egyptian Avenue, making architecture another attraction alongside its famous graves.
