An Afterlife at St. Peter’s Cemetery, Salzburg

Salzburg had been heartwarming to the solo traveler in me  and I decided to soak into everything that this small European town had to offer. This picturesque historical town that is guarded by the mighty Alps from all sides is famous for being the hometown of Mozart and setting for the movie, The Sound of Music. Salzburg has a lot to entice tourists and travelers alike – and thankfully I got a chance to be both, because frankly, there was so much to see and experience here. Just when I thought I’ve scratched beyond the surface of the city, to delve deeper into it’s old secrets, Tripadvisor threw me something I wasn’t sure I was capable of handling – a cemetery popped up while searching for offbeat places to see in Salzburg, Austria. St. Peter’s Cemetery

A little apprehensive at first ( mostly because I had no company) I decided to walk up the serpentine hilly road, not knowing if I was doing the right thing. With a view of snow clad Alps on one side and pretty little houses on the other,  I was soon lost in the beauty of Salzburg. Right or wrong stopped making any sense then and rightly so, because the word beautiful doesn’t ever go along with something as dark as death. It is an irony that springs to life at St. Peter’s Cemetery, named as the world’s most beautiful cemetery, and the oldest one at Salzburg, with tombstones dating back to 1288.

 

Many notable personalities, artists, scholars and merchants found their final resting place here, including Nannerl, Mozart’s sister. Surrounding the Late Gothic St. Mary’s Chapel in the center of the cemetery, numerous gravestones lie scattered around like pearls from a broken necklace. But what is beautiful about this cemetery is not the Alps around it, not the fact that pretty Hohensalzburg Castle overlooks it, not the Catacombs that date back to late antiquity, but the fact that all the graves at St. Peter’s Cemetery are alive. With death, Life comes full circle,  and sprouts back from these graves, blossoming into the prettiest flowers I have ever seen.

 

 

 

 

There was a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye as I walked around, reading names, dates and epitaphs. Wondering about their stories, their families and the afterlife they have been blessed with, this lonely walk around these graves turned out to be a life changing experience for me. It’s been months since that day but I haven’t stopped thinking how I would like to be buried, and turned into something so beautiful, instead of being burned to ashes and subsequently uniting with the rivers. Religion doesn’t matter much to me anyway, but it makes sense to unite with the earth and give birth to a new life.

Maybe this way also helps the near and dear ones to learn to deal with grief of losing a loved one by seeing them blooming into happy flowers. Letting them go but still loving someone with all the shattered pieces of a broken heart that remains is perhaps the truest love there is. It is love that doesn’t even need a presence, a voice or even life. Perhaps death teaches what life cannot- it teaches that you’re capable of loving someone beyond lifetimes. And that you’re loved back from the heavens. Though the grief is eternal and dark, yet it is also beautiful in an ironic, heart-shattering way. At St. Peter’s Cemetery, this grief turns into buds that blossom, reminding us that life goes on. Quite literally.