Lisbon again.. but this time not Prazeres but Cemiterio Alto de Sao Joao

And what a long name for a Cemetery it is.

It is the by far the biggest Cemetery in Lisbon, but it's not quite as fascinating as the Prazeres. Still a good place to go as my pictures will proove.

The cemetery itself has a strange feeling: It is like a city for the dead. Alleys full of graves that remind you of houses where the dead dwell. You can peek into the doors and see the coffins... most of them slowly rotting. It has a rather creepy feeling.

The biggest difference between Prazeres and this one is the lack of sculptures. There were a few but it wasn't as rich as Prazeres itself.

Here are the Pictures:

Cimitero Prazeres, Lisboa: Revisit Part II

The second Post about my visit is all about sculptures. So let's cut the crap and let the pictures speak:

A *very* fine example of Art Nuveau

Detail of the Tomb of Antonio Augusto Carvalho

Necropolis

Autumn 

Prazeres Cemetery, Lisboa: Revisit

Bloody Hell!

It's half a year since i've done a post here so it is about high time to change that:

I've visited the Prazeres Cemetery in Lisboa again this October and i'd like to share some of the Pictures i've made there.

This post is all about Hourglasses since they pop up all over the place there. It begins with the entrance and they can be found nearly everywhere on this amazing cemetery.

This time i was lucky with the light since it was sunny all day. Last time it was overcast and the shadows were -in my opinion- a bit too soft.

Enough of the words:

A classic one. On top of a Crypt.

Left corner of the entrance

Note the delicacy of the bones!

The Bats have left the Bell-Tower (Quote from Bauhaus)

Portugal 2011: Another Bones Chapel

Here we go again: I've made a post about this topic some time ago, but this year it was a different chapel.

It is the bones chapel in Alcantarilha .

Again, the walls of the chapel are covered in human bones and skulls. This time they didn't do it with victims of the plague but with "normal" dead. And the story goes like this:

About 300 years ago the local cemtery was simply full, so it was decided to dig up the dead and take them to Faro, the next big city in this area. However, the residents were against that and they protested and wanted their dead nearby. So they collected the bones and glued them to the chapel wall.

Info at the entrance

Detail

Heavy-Metal-Cover-Designer's wet dream...

Even beaches can be cemeteries....

Since the weather was stormy and windy we decided to pay the southwest coast of Portugal a visit. The promise of dramatic landscape and really big waves crashing on the shore was more inviting than hanging around and being gloom about the weater. Some geocaching was thrown in as well...

At this beach i found something odd though: Lying in the sand there was a strange heart-shaped object which i've never seen before. I was, to be brutally honest, a bit baffled by this. Because this wasn't a lifebelt (or at least not a normal one for a normal passenger...)

Why heartshaped? Why all these strange spikes and fittings around it?

My stepmother provided the anwer: This is a funeral wreath from a sea burial. The spikes are remains of the flowers, the iron fittings held them together.

Detail

I guess the urn itself was ripped off by the sea  (was it attached to the rope?).