Cheapflights.ca Gets Into the 'Spirit' of Halloween

TORONTO--(Marketwired - Oct 8, 2013) - You know that Halloween is creeping up on us when zombies, skeletons and graveyards start popping up to get everyone into the fun and frightful spirit of this holiday. The travel experts at Cheapflights.ca, the online leader in finding and publishing travel deals, ventured even deeper into the world of the eerie and have dug up their Top 10 Fascinating Cemeteries. From Mafia Graves to Hanging Coffins to the burial sites of the famous, these graveyards are must-see travel spots. However, we highly recommend you visit before it gets dark.

Below are four fascinating cemeteries from our list found in North America and Europe that are well known for their residents.

• Titanic Grave Site, Fairview Cemetery, Nova Scotia, Canada - At first glance, the Fairview Cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia, looks like your average grave site, but it is the final resting place for 121 victims of the RMS Titanic - more than any other cemetery in the world. Most are remembered with small grey granite blocks (with the name and date of death) that were paid for by the White Star Line (the owners of Titanic), while some families paid for larger, individual tombstones. Tragically, a third of the victims buried at Fairview were never identified - and their graves simply show the date of death and marker number. One of the most striking and moving memorials is the grave of an "Unknown Child", identified in 2008 as 19-month-old Sidney Leslie Goodwin who perished along with his parents and five siblings. Sidney's body was recovered by sailors on the Mackay-Bennett. The crew members were so upset by what they saw that they pulled together and paid for a monument. A small copper pendant was placed inside the coffin that simply read: "Our Babe".
  
  
• Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia, United States - The first thing you notice when you visit Arlington National Cemetery are the rows upon rows of white tombstones that seem to go on forever. Established during the Civil War on the grounds of Arlington House, the cemetery is the burial site for more than 40,000 service members and their families. Stretching over 624 acres, the cemetery is divided into 70 sections including one for nurses, another for those killed in the Global War on Terror and a third called Chaplains Hill. The first soldier buried in Arlington was Private William Henry Christman of Pennsylvania on May 13, 1864, and today between 27 to 30 funeral services take place daily. Arlington has seen five state funerals including services for Presidents William Howard Taft and John F. Kennedy. The grave of President Kennedy, who is buried with his wife, Jacqueline, and two of their children, is one of the most visited in Arlington. The grave is marked with an eternal flame and lies near the graves of his brothers Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Senator Ted Kennedy. The "Tomb of the Unknowns" remains one of the most moving memorials at Arlington. The Tomb has been under non-stop guard since July 2, 1937, and the Changing of the Guard ceremony always attracts a crowd.
  
  
• Highgate Cemetery, London, United Kingdom - Possibly the most visited and well-known graveyard in the world, Highgate Cemetery in North London is a popular attraction thanks to its natural beauty, haunting grave markers and famous occupants. Opened in 1839, approximately 170,000 people are buried in Highgate's East and West Cemeteries. Highgate quickly became a fashionable place to be buried and some of the best-known graves belong to authors Douglas Adams (who wrote "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy") and George Eliot (the name on the grave is Mary Ann Cross), Karl Marx and punk impresario Malcolm McLaren. As of March 2013, visitors can only access the West Cemetery by guided tour. The East Cemetery remains self-guided. The West Cemetery is home to the most impressive architectural features of Highgate Cemetery including the Chapel, Egyptian Avenue, Circle of Lebanon, Terrace Catacombs and the mausoleum of Julius Beer.
  
  
• Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, France - Like Highgate Cemetery in London, Père Lachaise Cemetery (Cimetière du Père-Lachaise) is notable for its setting and as the final resting place of many important French and international figures. Opened in 1804, more than a million are now buried in its grounds. Among the most famous are Frédéric Chopin, Jim Morrison, Édith Piaf, Oscar Wilde and Marcel Proust. If people wish to rest in peace with this exclusive set of neighbours, they must either die in the French capital or have lived there. Today, each grave site is given a 30-year lease, which, if not renewed by the family, is given up to a new owner. Remains are then sent to the cemetery's Aux Morts ossuary.

Rounding out the list of intriguing cemeteries are six more graveyards dotting the globe: Merry Cemetery, Maramures; Mafia Graves, Yekaterinburg, Russia; Isle of the Dead, Tasmania, Australia; Hanging coffins, Sagada, Mountain Province, Philippines; Shah-i-Zinda, Samarkand, Uzbekistan; and Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt. To read the curious (if not creepy) details of these burial grounds and see Cheapflights.ca's complete list of Top 10 Fascinating Cemeteries, visit www.cheapflights.ca/travel/top-10-fascinating-cemeteries.

About Cheapflights.ca, part of the Momondo Group
Momondo Group is an online travel media and technology company that is driven by the belief that an open world is a better world. The group now serves travel search and inspiration to over 13 million visitors a month -- plus 7 million travel newsletter subscribers -- via its Cheapflights (www.cheapflights.ca) and momondo (www.momondo.com) brands.

Skygate began the sourcing of complex air-travel data in 1992, while Cheapflights pioneered the online comparison of flight deals for users in 1996 and momondo launched meta-search in the Nordic countries in 2006.

The Group has offices in London, Copenhagen, Boston and Toronto, with a consumer base across more than 20 core international markets but users all over the world.

Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/cheapflights

Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/cheapflights