I love visiting the cemeteries. They are my favorite places in New Orleans besides the Central Grocery Co. and Decatur Street. One of my favorite cemeteries is the St. Louis Number One on Basin and St. Louis Streets; it is my favorite because of three things, including the Hex Tomb, or the Italian Mutual Benevolent Society Tomb, because its builder and designer, Pietro Gualdi, was the first to be buried. You can't miss this marble tomb with a woman standing high on its roof. It's not far from Marie Laveau's tomb, but this monumental structure towers over the City of the Dead.

The second person, oddly, was the society's president Joseph A. Barelli. The founder's son was killed when the steamboat Louisiana blew its boiler. In Saint Louis No. 2, the tomb has five praying angels. Inside the tomb is a scene of the explosion and sinking of the steamboat, and the spirit of the Barelli boy is in an angel's arms being taken to heaven.

The cemeteries are dangerous at times, with muggers in the small alleys between the aboveground tombs. Any tour will take you in, but Save Our Cemeteries offers a policeman to venture inside with their tour. Oh, as for the third experience, make sure you look down at the ground, because there are small pieces of remaining tombs, and guess who tripped over one and skinned her leg?

This is one of the oldest cemeteries located in New Orleans, and you can certainly tell by the condition some of the tombs are in.

This is still a place you don't want to miss. It's in a rather shady part of town, so I don't recommend going here alone, but it's very easy to find a walking tour that stops here.

Here you'll find New Orleans' first African-American mayor, Ernst Morial, entombed next to the Glapion family tomb where Marie Laveau and her daughter are both reputedly buried.

Story goes that when they went to entomb the mayor, the path to the family crypt was not large enough, so they had to turn the coffin sideways. Apparently, mourners were able to hear the body thwump against the side of the coffin as the poor mayor's coffin was turned to fit through the narrow walkway. In recent years, the family crypt was rebuilt to face the opposite direction so that an instance like this would never occur again.

An interesting fact about Marie Laveau, a healer and prominent figure in her time: tombs in New Orleans are almost never filled to capacity, and Marie Laveau's tomb is no exception. In her benevolence, she would offer up space in her family crypt to those who could not afford burial space so that they could be buried on Christian ground.

For more pictures that capture the beauty of these old tombs, see my travelogue.

For more info on Marie Laveau and the rituals surrounding her tomb, see my general tips.

Walking through a century-and-a-half-old cemetery can be a fascinating experience in any city. It’s especially so in New Orleans. People can’t be buried underground here; the old families vied with each other to build the most elaborate and ornate above-ground vaults for their recently-departed ancestors. Even the simpler vaults of the lesser families often have intriguing carvings and inscriptions.

Two old and especially historic cemeteries are Saint Louis #1 and #2, on Claiborne Ave. a short distance east of Canal St. Many of New Orleans’ most illustrious jazz musicians and other late dignitaries are entombed here. Tourist buses call regularly.

Other historic New Orleans cemeteries, somewhat more open and less tourist-intensive, are clustered at the end of Canal St. An hour spent strolling through them --- studying the ancient inscriptions with camera in hand --- is a pleasant way to spend part of an afternoon and burn off a few calories.

These cemeteries are even easier to get to with the "new" Canal St. Trolley line opening early in 2004. Trolleys will run from the Mississippi River ferry terminal to the far end of Canal St., directly in front of the cemeteries, with an eventual connection along Carrollton Ave. to the end of the existing St. Charles Trolley route. This restores service on a line that lasted half-a-century before being torn up or paved over for buses.

For variety, you can go outbound from downtown via Canal St. trolley and return by bus by way of Esplanade Ave. and the French Quarter.