In this tour, we will embark on a wondrous journey around the cemeteries of the world. From these diverse places of rest, we can learn how the different world cultures and religions practice their own methods of remembrance. What is universal, however, is that as the bereaved mourn their lost ones, all try to find a suitable place to remember them by.

We will begin in Japan, in the Okunoin Cemetery, considered to be the holiest location on the monastery mountain of Koya San, a "whispering forest" that contains ancestral spirits. In San José, the capital city of Costa Rica, artistically decorated angels, cherubs, sculptures and ornaments adorn graves. From the The Shah-I-Zinda Necropolis in the fairy-tale city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan to the Brother Cemetery, commemorating Latvian victims of the First World War. From the old Noratus Cemetary on the bank of Lake Sevan in Armenia to the old colonial Portugese Cemitério do São Miguel in Chinese Macao.

From cemeteries built from chiselled stone to those decorated with laid patterned tiles. Those built for Nobel-prize winners and upper-class families to general cemeteries, open to all faiths. One sits on its own island, only reachable by water and one is the site of an annual grandiose ceremony, where the dead are honoured by the nation’s most revered dignitaries and even the royal family.

Across Asia, Europe, South America and beyond, experience for yourselves the beautiful, holy, peaceful and spiritual final resting places the cultures of the world have chosen for their dearly departed. They truly are as almost as diverse as the human race itself.