Hotels near Recoleta Cemetery

Recoleta Cemetery is where almost every visitor to Buenos Aires ends up, and it earns the attention. Roughly 4,700 vaults line a walled grid of narrow lanes, many of them marble mausoleums with glass doors, bronze fittings and coffins visible from the path. Presidents, generals, Nobel laureates and boxing champions are buried here. The most visited grave belongs to Eva Peron, in the Duarte family vault on a side lane off the main avenue - look for the small crowd and the fresh flowers rather than trying to read the map.

Entry runs around EUR 10 for foreign visitors and the ticket office sits just inside the neoclassical gate on Junin. Allow an hour, longer if you like reading inscriptions. The burial list and the architecture of the vaults are documented on Wikipedia. Gates open daily at 09:00, and the light is best before 11:00 before the marble washes out. Outside the walls, Plaza Francia holds a craft market at weekends and the Basilica de Nuestra Senora del Pilar next door dates to 1732.

Pro Tip: Enter through the Junin gate and turn left immediately. Free English-language walking tours leave from just inside at 11:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and those guides know which vaults are open that week. Ignore the combo tickets sold by touts on the plaza outside.