Mount Auburn Cemetery is a very particular place.
We are used to see these places in the American movies and maybe you won’t put in your tours and your plans the tour to a monumental cemetery. Unless you are particularly fans of the type, of the funerary art or the famous characters’ history buried here.
At least I thought that…until I had the chance to enter the Mount Auburn Cemetery. I have to admit at first with a bit of skepticism.
What to see in Boston Mount Auburn Cemetery
It is defined as a rural cemetery and it’s at about 6km far from downtown Boston. You go along the River Charles, you go past the MIT and Harvard and you reach the main entrance.
Mount Auburn Cemetery is first of all a cemetery but it is also an historic national monument, a botanic garden, an outdoor art and architecture museum and an important habitat for the urban wild fauna.
Mount Auburn Cemetery, not only a cemetery
There are many view points inside the cemetery. There are many benches in the most beautiful places to favour rest and relax.
The atmosphere inside is calm, deep in the green. It tries to transmit peace and serenity and tries to make forget the main goal of its existence: death.
Among the people buried here there are many famous people who were important actors in the history of Boston and New England: writers, scientists, inventors, artists…
But until now we have described and told about “only” a cemetery. Mount Auburn Cemetery is much more!
Visitor center, depliant and app
At the entrance there’s the Visitor Center. We recommend you to start the tour by here: maps, handbills, brochures, descriptions and a handy app (I advise you to download it) will be essential to plan the tour at the best according to your interests. You think they have even a periodical magazine!
Programs are very busy and packed to meet everyone’s needs.
Nature, fauna, greenness and peace at Mount Auburn
Yeah, because people visit Mount Auburn as a cemetery but also as a relax place, whether they love art and architecture or whether they love nature and bird watching. There are many species nesting here or simply passing by here, and look up in the migration calendar will allow you to admire the several species at the best.
Explore @MountAuburnCem among art, nature and fauna at few km far from #Boston! #visitMA @visitMA @visitusaitaly Click To Tweet
It’s a wonderful place where to walk in peace, to read a book in its most hidden corners, to push a stroller or to look at the wild fauna populating this place: salamanders, peacocks, frogs, tortoises, coyotes, turkeys, bees, squirrels, hares, polecats, badgers…
It’s a place which became over time a reference point for the Bostonians mixing with visitors.
People come here to hide, think, practice outdoor activities, admire the sphinx, meditate in the Old Chapel or think over the importance dogs have in the funerary art: for example to keep in the afterlife the strong relationship with one’s own animals.
Funerary art, a lot of greenness and relax, flora blooming and foliage. All this is @MountAuburnCem. #visitMA @visitMA Click To Tweet
Botanic lovers have in their hands a huge quantity of different plants: they all have strictly informative botanic labels.
The landscape is variegate and multicolor thanks to the different blooming seasons.
Here the funerary art finds its best expression.
It tells about history of people and characters, the evolution over 180 years of history, a steady evolution and change architecture.
Guided tours at Mount Auburn
There are all sorts of tours: from funerary art to the several famous characters, from nature to animals, individual tours and even tours dedicated to children.
The cemetery has more than 17 km of roads and paths which can be travelled over by car, too.
Among the famous characters buried here we cannot not to mention Isabella Stewart Gardner: we’ve already met her visiting her so particular museum.
A unique place is the Washington Tower: it’s possible to go up there. It’s de rigueur to admire the view from up there: on one side it gets lost towards the downtown and the Boston skyline, on the other one it allows to be aware of the expanse and the variety of greenness neighboring the tower.
Admire #Boston form the top of the tower, a unique view @MountAuburnCem. #visitMA @visitMA Click To Tweet
Useful tips for the visit
Mount Auburn Cemetery is easily reachable from Boston by car or by transit.
Admittance is allowed every day of the year from 8AM to 8PM
Free admittance.
You can use car or bicycle to go around streets and avenues.
Painters and photographers are welcomed. You think inside are even took weddings photography services.
If you need to find a particular tomb it’s possible to search for it directly on the website.
Always on the website you can book the guided tour.
A last precious tip: even though you are not particularly interested in the subject, carve out an hour for yourselves to immerse yourselves into this so particular atmosphere.
You will be bewitched by it and a so few time won’t be enough.
A very good chance to come back for a tour with a prepared and kind guide who will make you curious making you enjoy at the best this so particular place.
Enjoy your visit!
