Vegan Victuals Goes to Spain 🇪🇸
Cementerio Sacramental de San Isidro, Madrid

It’s been awhile since I have been abroad! 7 years to be exact. With the worst school year of my life, ending in being excessed, another excessed teacher and I decided we had a lot to decompress from. I would join her in Spain on an adventure.

With that in mind, I knew I’d be graving in the Old World–an exciting prospect for someone who’d hit all the local old cemeteries with gusto, but had since lost a bit of graving moxy. It was, after all, the worst season to hit the cemeteries… the summer. All the other seasons I kind of consider cemetery season–the Spring with its budding green, the Winter with its stark white, and the Fall with its bright foliage. But here I was in the Mediterranean climate, ready to capture the pain of the extravagantly devout and in mourning… starting in Madrid at Cementerio Sacramental de San Isidro. That is, El Cementerio de la Pontificia y Real Archicofradía Sacramental de San Pedro, San Andrés, San Isidro y de la Purísima Concepción, its official name.

The cemetery, the oldest preserved cemetery in Madrid, was built in 1811, when law prohibited burials within the city.  So it was upon the hill “El Cerro de las Ánimas” (Hill of Souls) where so many of Madrid’s aristocrats, bourgeoisie, politicians and artists eternally lay. To me this means gorgeous sculpture, the kind that puts it to the top of the itinerary. To follow, some of its beauty.

A map, because I found it difficult to find in my preparatory research.

I was annoyed at the bright sun the whole time.

This was spectacular. So much rich detail… it was hard to capture

A lot of vaults

Held by the angels

Door to family’s catacombs

A great first stop straight from the airport! And there was another cemetery 5 minutes away. More on that soon! Goodnight, USA.