LIVING

While it’s true that the bats flying overhead add to the spooky mood, the moonlit tour of Poblenou cemetery focuses much more on life than death, with history, art and architecture being the main themes, rather than ghosts and ghouls.

In the company of guides dressed up as 19th-century gatekeepers and bourgeois ladies and gentlemen, and to the accompaniment of live classical violin music, it isn’t difficult to get into the spirit of the occasion as you wander along the paths lined with hundreds of burial niches and stand before mausoleums the size of small chapels. The faces of serene angels and saints are illuminated by candlelight—and with them, it has to be said, the occasional skull and fearsome gargoyle.

It’s a unique way to go back in time to Barcelona as it was between 1819 (when Poblenou cemetery opened) and 1888—a time that was marked by numerous epidemics, industrial advances, new fortunes, economic crisis, scientific discoveries and revolutions in the city. The evidence of these social, economic and political happenings can all be found in the cemetery’s design, development, facilities and, of course, the stories behind some of the people buried here. Montjuïc cemetery, which opened in 1883, continues the timeline of events, with evidence of the cultural, and later political, Catalan Renaixença (Renaissance), the Modernisme art movement, more revolutions, the rise of anarchism, general strikes, fascism and the Civil War.

Visiting these cemeteries provides a real insight into the impact of historical events on the city and its people, whether you brave the night-time tour of Poblenou or join one of the Sunday daytime tours of both that run throughout the year.

Poblenou Cemetery

Originally designed by Italian architect Antonio Ginesi, Poblenou cemetery was inaugurated in 1819 and located almost a mile away from the city, outside its walls, meaning a 30-minute walk through undeveloped land inhabited by wolves to get there. Its location made it unpopular, as did the fact that the population had been accustomed to having deceased loved ones nearby and still a part of their daily lives when buried in the graveyards next to parish churches. Yet Ginesi’s plan for the cemetery was very much in line with the society of the time and took into account the new moral values and social ideas that were developing through the economic growth in Barcelona from new commerce and industry.