Cemeteries tell us such fascinating stories about the past and this is evident in the above-ground cemeteries in New Orleans.
Many local tour companies offer haunted history tours through St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 on North Rampart Street, considered to be the “most haunted” cemetery in the US (and home to the grave and ghost of Marie Laveau, the famous “Voodoo Queen of New Orleans”).
A less crowded alternative is the Garden District’s Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, located across the street from the Commander’s Palace Restaurant. The first planned cemetery in New Orleans covers just one city block but contains an estimated 1,100 family and society tombs. A few areas of the cemetery are overgrown and many monuments, gravestones and tombs are broken, as the oldest date back to the 1800s.
The outer sections of the cemetery are lined with trees, allowing sunlight tobreak through the darkness, adding to the moody atmosphere. Many movies and music videos were filmed here, most notably “Interview with The Vampire”. The cemetery is open Monday to Friday 7 am to 2:30 pm and Saturdays 7 am to noon.
