The Cemetery of Asistens

Who would think of turning a cemetery into a picturesque park? ….. To the Danes. Between abandoned crosses or decorated like Christmas trees or grassy spaces for a picnic, you will find the tomb of Hans Cristian Andersen, who for an icon of the country is well hidden. Nonsense. Of course, visiting the cemetery in Copenhagen on a foggy day is to enter a world where the senses are unreliable. Long cobbled streets, empty spaces full of vegetation where the sounds of footsteps rustling the leaves and the silhouettes of people sliding in front of your eyes make you feel a chill that catches you and makes you go deeper and deeper into the place. You find solitary tombstones on which sinewy branches loom like skeletal arms wanting to hug them or solitary sculptures that create a suffocating atmosphere. And who doesn’t want to enter the Sleepy Hollow of the north?