Aisne-Marne, established in 1918, is a cemetery that contains the graves of American soldiers. It’s located at the bottom of the hill where one of the bloodiest fights of World War I took place: the Battle of Belleau Wood. The Battle of Belleau Wood saw American marines stop the German army from crossing the Marne River, halting their progress and securing the area. In honour of the marines who fought in this battle, the woods were renamed “Woods of the Marine Brigade.”
During World War Two, in 1940, heavy fighting took place near Aisne-Marne and the chapel sustained some damages. Since then, it has been completely repaired save for one bullet hole as a reminder of the events that once occurred there.
There are 2,289 graves at Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, mostly belonging to soldiers who fought in the area and 250 of which are unnamed. Several memorials to the Battle of Belleau Wood surround the cemetery, including a memorial chapel, battle markers and a memorial to 1,060 missing soldiers. There is also a visitor centre and there is a guide on site when Aisne-Marne American Cemetery is open.
Aisne-Marne American Cemetery lies south of the village of Belleau, France, six and a half miles northwest of Château-Thierry. There is rail service from Paris (Gare de l’Est) to the train station in Château-Thierry. The journey takes about one hour. From Château-Thierry to Belleau, the trip is a 15-minute ride via taxi. This no bus transportation available.
To travel by car, From Paris travel via toll autoroute A-4. Take the Montreuil-aux-Lions exit (#19), then travel via N-3 (also called D1003), following the cemetery signs to “Lucy-le-Bocage” and proceed via D82 through Belleau Wood to the cemetery entrance.
Ari Burni Cemetery, which gets its name from the Cape at the North end of the Anzac Cove, was created in 1915. Interestingly, it was established during the campaign by the Allied troops to lay their fallen soldiers to rest, in spite of the fact that the area itself was under fire from Turkish outposts.
The cemetery primarily houses Australian soldiers, among whom are the men of the 8th and 10th Light Horse Regiments who were killed in the ill-fated charge at the Nek on 7th August 1915. There are also graves dedicated to those who gave their lives in a non-soldier capacity.
In 1926 and 1927, graves from the Kilid Bahr Anglo-French Cemetery, which was from the eastern side of the Gallipoli Peninsula, and the Gallipoli Consular Cemetery, which was from the north, were added to the cemetery.
The first boat loads of Australians landed around Ari Burnu on 25th April 1915 and the official Dawn Service was held there for many years, but due to overcrowding the Anzac Commemorative Site was built at North Beach, which is on the other side of the headland.
The last Dawn Service held at the Ari Burni Cemetery was on the 25th April 1999.
The cemetery is permanently open and can be visited at any time. Wheelchair access to the cemetery is possible via the main entrance.
Visitors are advised to note that there isn’t a cemetery register, so should locate the Grave/Memorial reference before visiting by finding it on their website.
From the centre of the Gallipoli Peninsula, the cemetery is reachable in around 45 minutes by car via the Edirne Çanakkale Yolu/D550/E87 roads. For any particularly hardy traveller, the site is reachable in around 7 hours by foot from the centre of the Peninsula, and will take you along the coastline of the Dardanelles Strait.
The Anzac and Suvla cemeteries are first signposted from the left hand junction of the Eceabat – Bigali road. From this junction you should travel into the main Anzac area. Ari Burnu Cemetery lies between the beach and the cliff under Plugge’s Plateau, about 1000 metres north-north-west of Lone Pine.
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Initially, the site of Arlington Cemetery began as a house – Arlington House – built in memory of President George Washington. The house, which still stands today, then became the property of Mary and Robert E. Lee.
During the American Civil War, Lee was asked to be a Union leader but refused, waiting to see how Virginia would side. When Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861, Lee became a commander of the Confederate army and fled from Arlington House shortly before the Union crossed the Potomac River and took the land around Washington. Eventually captured, Arlington House would become a Union army base.
In January 1864, the government legally purchased Arlington House and, later that year, desperately in need of space to bury the increasing number of war casualties, Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs designated Arlington a national cemetery – a function for which it had unofficially already been used. By the end of the conflict in 1865, Arlington housed the graves of over 5,000 soldiers.
Over the years, Arlington National Cemetery has come to represent a memorial to all US soldiers who have died for their country and is still an active cemetery. In fact, there are approximately 400,000 graves at Arlington National Cemetery, neatly aligned and each with a white headstone.
With its status as a nationally heritage site, Arlington National Cemetery has also formed the location of numerous monuments. Amongst these are The Arlington Memorial Amphitheatre, where memorials and funerals are held, the United States Marine Corps Memorial, an iconic statue depicting soldiers raising the American flag and the Women in Military Service for America Memorial.
Arlington National Cemetery is also the home of The Tomb of the Unknowns, a burial place for one unidentified soldier from each of World War One, World War Two and the Korean War. There was a soldier from the Vietnam War, but he was later identified and moved. Many famous Americans are buried at Arlington National Cemetery, from military heroes to astronauts such as John Glenn and leaders such as President John F. Kennedy.
Those visiting Arlington National Cemetery can start at the visitor centre, where there are guide books, maps and exhibits. Arlington House itself is also open to the public, with a museum and guides chronicling this building’s unique history.
The site is unsurprisingly huge (covering 624 acres): there’s a handy hop-on hop-off bus that departs regularly from the visitors centre if you want to see the key points. Look out for the infamous Confederate Memorial, the Iwo Jima memorial, located in the northern fringes of the cemetery, the eternal flame by the tomb of JFK and the changing of the guard, which happens regularly.
Arlington is just over the Potomac River from Washington D.C, meaning it’s in Virginia. It’s hard to miss: it borders the Pentagon, and Interstate 395, the South Washington Boulevard and Arlington Boulevard enclose it. There’s plenty of parking on Memorial Avenue, and the cemetery is also reached by public transport from Arlington Cemetery, Pentagon or Rosslyn metro.
]]>In the latter half of the eighteenth century, plots at Assistens Kirkegard became fashionable, and today it houses the burial places of many of Denmark’s most prominent figures, including Hans Christian Andersen and Soren Kierkegaard. Assistens Kirkegard is also a park, containing many leisure facilities.
Assistens Kirkegard is probably Denmark’s most famous graveyard. An outbreak of plague in 1711 killed around 23,000 citizens and put existing burial grounds under pressure. This led to the establishment of five new cemeteries. From the 1750s, the situation deteriorated further, and Assistens Kirkegard was built from 1757 and inaugurated in 1760.
Originally, the graveyard was a site for paupers, but in 1785, after First Secretary of the War Chancellery Johan Samuel Augustin made requests to be interred there, it became a fashionable burial spot. It then became a popular excursion location – so popular, in fact, that legislation had to be passed which prohibited the consumption of food and drink, and forbade the on-site gravediggers from selling it.
Today, Assistens Kirkegard is still a graveyard, but is also a popular tourist attraction owing to the many famous people buried there. It is also the most important green space in the inner part of the Nørrebro district.
The graveyard is divided into sections. Section A is the oldest, and features the graves of Søren Kierkegaard and the painter Christen Købke among others. Section D is dedicated to religious minorities, containing Roman Catholic and Reformed graves as well as Russian graves. Section E is the section which originally served under Church of Our Lady.
In 2003 an old horse stable in a corner of the cemetery was converted into a small museum dedicated to writer and artist Herman Stilling, who was native to the Nørrebro area and is mainly known for his paintings of trolls. Aside from the permanent exhibition, the museum also contains an exhibition space for visiting exhibitions, a picture workshop for children and young people, and a cafe.
The cemetery was protected in 2014, and in 2019, started working on a development plan to safeguard its future.
From the centre of Copenhagen, Assistens Kirkegard is reachable in around 7 minutes via Åboulevard. It’s also reachable by foot in around 25 minutes via the same road.
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The graves are Carrowmore are thought to date back to around 3500BC: thirty tombs have been discovered, which makes Carrowmore the largest and oldest of Ireland’s megalithic complexes. The site is arranged around a cairn, Listoghil, in the centre, with the other tombs as ‘satellite tombs’ around this one.
Listoghil (also sometimes known as Tomb 51) is the only tomb where megalithic art and burials have been found – cremations are far more common. The satellite tombs tend to follow a similar layout – a central megalith surrounded by 5 upright stones, with a capstone on top enclosing a burial chamber, all facing towards the central cairn. Unlike other megalithic tombs, these were not passage tombs.
The monuments have lasted so well in large parts because of their foundations: they were packed into a small platform of earth and stone, locking them in place. The wider landscape of the Cuil Iorra peninsula contains an assortment of neolithic monuments.
Carrowmore was surveyed in the 1830s, and first exacavated in the 1880s. Modern exacavations were carried out in the 1970s, 80s and 90s by Swiss archaeologist Göran Burenhult to further understand the site.
Carrowmore is run by Heritage Ireland today – the site is under public ownership and there’s now a permanent exhibition space housed in an old cottage on the site, which is extremely useful. All 30 of the tombs are on display to the public.
You can pick up self-guided tour leaflets in a variety of languages there: guided tours also run relatively regularly. The terrain can be quite uneven underfoot, and the site is exposed so wrap up warm (and bring waterproofs!) and wear sturdy shoes.
Carrowmore is about 5km south west of the town of Sligo, in west Ireland: it’s most easily accessed by the R292, and is about 2km east of the Ransboro crossroads. Public transport is extremely limited in this part of Ireland, so you’re best off walking if you don’t have a car. It should take around an hour, and if you’re lucky, a passing local might take pity and take you some of the way.
]]>Founded in 1821, following Chilean Independence, Cementerio General de Santiago is almost a city within a city, a labyrinth of elaborate tombs and avenues. It spans over 85 hectares, and was designed to be a beautiful space as much as a practical site. It houses 172 of Chile’s most famous and important figures, including all but 2 of its presidents, and now has over 2 million graves located there.
Note the larger elaborate mausoleums for the city’s richest residents are confined to the southern end of the cemetery, whereas the urns and simple graves of Santiago’s ordinary residents are found in the northern reaches of the plot.
There’s a memorial to the victims of the 1863 Church of the Company Fire, which is still believed to be the most fatal accidental fire ever recorded.
In 1994, a memorial was constructed in remembrance of the victims of the Pinochet dictatorship: it bears the names of over 1.000 ‘disappeared’, and 3,000 more who were known to have been murdered by the regime.
The cemetery is free to visit, and open daily – remember families still come here to mourn their lost ones, and it’s a place which deserves respect. It takes several hours to thoroughly wander round the whole site.
Look out for the quirky ‘apartment blocks’ of the dead: a way of maximising space efficiency where urns are put together in niches. Particularly famous figures buried here include Chile’s legendary president Salvador Allende, Victor Jara (an activist and singer-songwriter murdered by the Pinochet regime) and the Socialist Orlando Letelier.
The cemetery is in the Recoleta district, and is most easily accessed via metro – the nearest stations are Cementerios or Cerro Blanco, on Linea 2 (Yellow Line). If you don’t fancy navigating public transport, it’s about a 30 minute walk north of the Plaza de Armas, or a short taxi ride away.
The main entrance is on the south side of the cemetery, where Av. La Paz meets Prof. Zañartu
]]>Chauchilla was a burial ground for the Nazca people, in use between the 2nd and 9th century AD. The conditions of the Peruvian desert, combined with Nazca burial practices, meant that despite the time elapsed, the bodies were in remarkably good condition, with many still having hair and skin attached. The Nazca painted the skin with resin, and used mud-brick lined tombs, which kept out damp and bacteria that would normally invade.
Over the centuries, the burial grounds were robbed and looted, and many of the bodies were spread haphazardly across the burial grounds or left in open graves. The incredibly well preserved Nazca corpses are still in the original cloth in which they were laid to rest. All of the corpses face east in accordance with the Nazca culture and they are all in the sitting position.
The tombs were formally rediscovered in the 1920s, and under the protection of the Peruvian government since 1997.
The mummified bodies, along with pottery and textile fragments, still litter the ground and open graves today. Some find this kind of ‘dark tourism’ unnerving, so it’s worth spending a couple of minutes thinking how you feel about it before going. Do also remember that these are human remains and should be treated with according respect.
Look out for the mummified heads: these were specifically mummified, although the precise circumstances of this mummification is unclear as DNA testing suggests the heads weren’t those of the enemy, but of people from the Nazca community.
The cemetery is in the desert: bring plenty of water, suncream, a hat and ideally cover up – the wind can be fierce, as is the sun, so protect your skin as best you can. There’s minimal signage, so if you want to learn about the site in any depth, a guide is recommended: you can either go as part of a tour or hire your own privately. Many guides have some incredible stories and facts about the site, so it’s well worth doing.
If the site feels familiar, you may well have seen a close replica used in the film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
The cemetery is about 30km south east of Nazca: the last few kilometres are down a dirt road, so come prepared. Many people come as part of a tour for ease of access and to benefit from a guide, but it’s possible to drive yourself or get a taxi. Buses/public transport are not really an option in this case.
]]>In 1917, Chinese workers brought by the British from the colonies came to provide labour and logistical assistance to British troops. Nearly 8,000 Chinese passed through Noyelles-sur-Mer, a support base during the First World War.
Most of these workers died from an outbreak of cholera. Today their story is told with 842 white gravestones, carved with Chinese ideograms.
Cimetière Chinois de Nolette is a memorial to these workers, built in a traditional Chinese style. It remains the largest Chinese cemetery in France.
Vistors can roam freely around the graveyard on self-guided tours. An averagetour last roughly 15 minutes.
Cimetière Chinois de Nolette is located in the town of Noyelles-sur-Mer on the north-west coast of France. The closest town is Abbeville, which is roughly a 15-minute drive away. There is parking on location.
]]>In order to allow them to liberate Rimini from German forces, it was vital for the Allies to take Coriano Ridge. Hampered by severe rain and German resistance, the battle for Coriano Ridge, whilst eventually successful, led to significant casualties.
The Allies invaded the Italian mainland on 3 September 1943. The invasion coincided with an armistice agreed with the Italians who re-entered the war on the Allied side. After the fall of Rome to Allies in June 1944, the German retreat led to several stands on a series of defensive lines.
The Gothic Line was one such area: breached by the Allies during the Autumn, the Germans dug into their position in the northern Apennine mountains and managed to stall the advance. Coriano Ridge was the final important ridge preventing the Allies from advance and capturing it was key to Rimini and the River Po.
In early September, German parachuters and panzers, along with bad weather, resisted attacks. They were attacked on 12 September 1944 by British and Canadian Armoured Divisions, successfully taking the Ridge. However, the following week saw some of the heaviest fighting seen in months with massive losses for the Eighth Army particularly.
In April 1945, the area was chosen for the cemetery and would include graves from surrounding battlefields.
Today, Coriano Ridge War Cemetery contains the neatly tended graves of 1,939 Commonwealth soldiers from the British and Canadian divisions that fought there, notably the Eighth Army, the 1st British Armoured Division and the 5th Canadian Armoured Division. The cemetery can be visited anytime and there is wheelchair access to the site.
Coriano Ridge War Cemetery is 3.5 kilometres west of Riccione, a seaside resort on the Adriatic coast, and is reached easily by car. Turn west off the main Rimini/Riccione road – the SS16 – about 1 kilometre north-west of Riccione. At this turning there is a sign leading to the cemetery. Follow it in the direction of Coriano turning left at a T junction and the cemetery is on the right-hand side.
]]>The Battle of Verdun was one of the fiercest during World War One, lasting from 21 February 1916 to December 1916 and resulting in estimated casualties of 400,000 soldiers for each of the French and German armies who fought in it.
The Douaumont Ossuary houses the bones of approximately 130,000 unknown soldiers from both sides, marking a fitting reminder to the savage consequences of this battle and the war as a whole. These remains can been seen through small windows inside the Douaumont Ossuary and the Ossuary’s cloisters are lined with plaques of the names of fallen soldiers and the locations of where each body was recovered. It also has a chapel where ceremonies take place.
Made up of an imposing stone structure with a 46 metre tower and beautifully maintained fields which house a cemetery with the graves of a further 15,000 French soldiers, the Douaumont Ossuary overlooks the battlefield of the Battle of Verdun. Visitors can climb to the top of its tower for panoramic views of these fields.
The first floor of the Douaumont Ossuary is dedicated to a museum of the First World War which includes weaponry, pieces from destroyed villages and the Minenwerfer, a well preserved 76 mm German mortar. Visitors to the Douaumont Ossuary can view a twenty minute film on the heroism of the Verdun soldiers in German, English and Dutch, which is shown every half hour.
Douaumont Ossuary is located just north of the city of Verdun, which lays roughly 50km south of the border between France, Belgium and Luxembourg. It is extremely close to Verdun Battlefield, Fort Vaux and of course, Fort Douaumont.
There is parking on site large enough for coaches. It is advisable to travel via car as there are no near bus stops or train stations outside of Verdun.
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